LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 

Chap..'>?j? Copyright No. 

Shelf.£.S5K|(S 



UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 



Mosses From a 
Rolling Stone. 



— BY— 



OINOXKNATI, O. 
THE EDITOR PUBLISHING OO. 



TWO COPIES RECEIVED. 

Library of C«ngr«(% 
Office ef th« 

NOV 1 6 1899 

Register of Copyrlghtfc 

47701 



COPYRIGHTBD 

EDITOR PUBLlSHDiTG COMPANY 

Cincinnati. 



SECOND COPY, 






Vdosscs ^vom a Kolling Stone. 



When anybody dreams a dream for 
five long years and then — it suddenly 
comes true, I wonder how anybody 
ought to feel? 

Happy, of course ! A little bit 
miserable too, and cross and tired 
with waiting so long for something 
that wasn't worth much after all. 

Anyhow that's how I felt when my 
dream came true. 

This dream wasn't such a very big 
affair, and I'd hardly dare tell you 
about it, if I didn't have faith in 
you and know you won't laugh in 
the wrong places. 

Just to be all by myself in a big, 
far away city and see what I could 
do, anyhow! Away from the minis- 
ter and his flock, and the circle of 
loving neighbors, and yes, even from 
1 



2 MOSSES FROM 

all the relations unto the third and 
the fourth generation. 

Never to slumber on parlor sofas 
anymore ; never more to be tucked up 
in folding beds that are hidden away 
in dingy corners; never again to 
sleep "three in a bed," and then 
help do up the work next morning. 
Sweet, sweet dream ! 

And every night, when my other 
prayers were done I put in a P. S. 
to my own special little god, he who 
ruleth the Critics and the Editors, yes 
and even the two for a nickle maga- 
zine and the penny apiece. 

I knew I wasn't worthy to do so 
much as loosen the latchet of his shoe 
so I prayed just for one small corner 
where I might "shine his boots" per- 
chance, and so keep in touch with his 
godship. 

And then — when it all came to 
pass, and I stood in that far away 
city surveying my little room with 
its real bed that was all my own — 
then would I have counted the whole 



AEOLLING STONE 3 

world well lost just to be back home 
again and sit on the cellar steps and 
cry and cry and cry ! I felt so dread- 
fully common-place. I slipped to the 
little mirror but it was not vanity 
saith the preacher, for I only wanted 
to see if I had the same old look I 
had worn for ages. Yes, and there 
were the freckles that spanned my 
nose — just the same — only there 
were eleven now and there used to be 
only ten. 

I wondered why God had made me. 
I don't suppose I'm the first being 
who has wondered that in the light 
of his own reflection, only a pretty 
girl with sweet, dark eyes has no 
need to. 

I can't help liking a pretty girl, 
and I'm not a man either! I don't 
care if she is flirtful and naughty and 
does wear silk-lined gowns, I can for- 
give her seven times seventy and a 
hundred fold, dear girl ! 

I guess if you were pretty 'twould 
turn your head too ! 



4 MOSSES FROM 

Once on a time when I was away 
at school I had a dainty sweet little 
room, so pretty that I used to go into 
the closet and peek out of it through 
the half-closed door. I never stood 
in the midst of it without a conscience 
stricken feeling that I was spoiling 
the effect. By and by I took unto 
myself a room mate, just as, some- 
times, men take a helpmeet, because 
she was dainty and sweet and her 
blue eyes went so well with things 
and her fair hair matched the drap- 
ings. She whistled "Hot Time" 
from dewy morn till eve, and "Home 
Sweet Home" whenever I had the 
toothache, still I loved and cherished 
her and my greatest delight was pos- 
icg her in the window seat and long- 
ing for the power to do her in water 
color. She was the model and I the 
artist — only, 1 couldn't draw a house 
so you could tell it from a chicken 
coop. 

But I do like pretty things ! Many, 
many moons ago, when I was four- 



A ROLLING STONE 5 

teen, I fell in love with a — preacher. 
Not that he was pretty, oh no ! but 
just wait till I get there. 

Now, as I look down from the 
dizzy heigiit of the years that have 
piled up since then I see myself as 
through a glass clearly, and behold! 
1 was a very little girl, quite on a par 
with my china-headed doll with its 
sawdust heart, only we didn't know 
our hearts were sawdust then, that 
doll and I. 

When I learned that this preacher 
had a wife I joined the band of mar- 
tyrs and suffered and died for two 
weeks. The next week I figured as 
"Lucile." To be sure my hair was 
as tow and my eyes w^ere pale, but I 
had a fertile imagination and 'twas but 
the work of a minute to have my 
hair all fall out and come in black as 
night. As for my eyes, I think I 
used diamond dye on them for they 
too "came in black." One day I met 
her and then — my love of the beauti- 
ful triumphed over my love of the 



6 MOSSES FROM 

preacher. Sorry — but I couldn't help 
it. Such a sweet, high-bred, dainty 
face as she did have; and "she was 
as good as she was beautiful." 

That night I broke Lucile's head 
with my little hatchet. And if any 
man doubt me, let him remember his 
fourteenth year. Fourteen is the age 
of miracles, of all sorts of wonderful, 
marvelous things : one day we love 
John and the next we love Sue, and 
the day after we hate everybody and 
all his kin folks. 

I would return to my subject if I 
only knew where it was. 

"Lost, Strayed or Stolen: a subject! 
Anyone returning same to writer 
will receive a reward." 

"Virtue hath its own reward." 
"All's not gold that glitters." 
"A thing of beauty isa joy forever." 
There ! I knew I'd find it in some old 
saw — it's Beauty my theme is. (I 
learned those old sayings at Normal 
School, glad now I went.) 

Some big man has said that beauty 



A ROLLING STONE 7 

of mind is way above beauty of face. 
I expect he was an ugly animal. 

That would be all right though if one 
could only wear the mind outside and 
get folk acquainted with it first, and 
then spring the face on 'em by de- 
grees. If one could do that, why, 
we'd love each other better, old Soc- 
rates and I. You see, I beheld a pic- 
ture of Socrates before I read any of 
his writings, and as I gazed on his 
brow and nose 1 readily understood 
how he could drink poison with a rel- 
ish. 

On a sunny afternoon long ago, I 
chanced to remember that, according 
to some man's tell, the eyes are the 
windows of the soul. I knew to a 
surety that I had a soul and I decided 
to have it peek out of its windows and 
get a glimpse of the great busy world. 
I had been reading some divine poetry 
and I felt so grand and great and good 
that I was sure my soul must be in its 
"Sunday best." I tip-toed to the 
glass. I gazed and gazed. Hush!. 



8 MOSSES FROM 

The windows were empty and I knew 
there were "Rooms to let!" I tip- 
toed back to my chair and in my heart 
was a feeling of goneness. 

Bless the heart of the man who said 
beauty is in the beholder's eye. It's 
lucky for me if it is in the other fel- 
low's eye, for now I won't have to "fix 
up' ' any more but just advertise for the 
right kind of an eye; one containing two 
beams and a mote with an eye winker 
in between. It must be color-blind 
and belong to a millionaire. Such an 
eye, I feel sure, can not fail to appre- 
ciate my style of beauty. 

Gentle reader, when last seen in the 
body I was at the mirror counting 
freckles — away back there where I 
was wondering w^hy I had been created. 

I turned away from the little glass 
and there were tears dripping onto 
the bridge of freckles, but they 
couldn't wash it away for it was 
founded upon a bone and the winds 
came and the tears beat upon it but 
the freckles multiplied and grew 
strong. 



A ROLLING STONE 9 

Yes, I was weeping. Was this the 
girl who had prayed, not two weeks 
gone, "Oh, vision stay! Oh, dream 
turn real?" No! it was the other 
girl who claims she is a part of me, 
but you and I and Brown and Jones 
know better — ive know she's a snide 
and an interloper. I took her up to 
the feet of Judge Reason. 

"Why do you weep?" asked the 
judge. "Has not your dream turned 
real, your vision stayed? Are the 
ships on the Bay not as large as you 
dreamed, or the city, is it too small ; — 
or have you ceased to aspire to 'black- 
ing the boots' of your little god.?" 

The girl stamped her foot (and 
strange enough, but I did the same 
thing.) "What do you think I care for 
this trash? this' and this! and this! 
I want my dream — that's all." 

Who says Reason has no heart? 
Not I! She had heart enough to 
leave that poor girl alone anyhow! 
And as for me, I had entirely lost my 
individuality in that of the "other 



10 MOSSES FROM 

girl" and which was t'other I didn't 
know. She had my entire sympathy, 
as I know she has yours. 

You've all been there! Hugged a 
dream to your hearts day and night, 
longing with a fierce longing for it to 
come true — never realizing that it 
must die before it can be born — then 
all of a sudden you wake up with a 
little dead elephant on your hands 
and you wonder where your dream 
has fled. Folks point to the elephant 
and tell you that is your dream 
"turned real," but ah, you know bet- 
ter! 

Did I say that or did some other 
fellow say it a long, long time before 
I was born? It makes me feel bad to 
think that no matter what I say it's 
all been said before. The only thing 
left for me to do is to turn it wrong 
side out, put on a new facing, hang it 
up on the line and beat it with a 
broom, till being already old and full 
of years, it falls to pieces and is then 
ready for the rag-bag. Ah'sme! 



A ROLLING STONE 11 

But there I was, (I and the other 
girl, whom at last I had recognized as 
being one with myself) there I was 
weeping! 

By and by my tears began to dry 
up and after mopping my face for an 
hour I struck dry land. I hailed it 
with joy, for I was hungry and 
needed my eyesight returned in order 
that I might seek food. 

Reader, I was to do ''light house- 
keeping" and there was a small back 
room for this purpose. This room 
was evidently intended to be lit by 
the star-light of my own eyes, for 
there were no apertures through which 
the rays of light might penetrate, ex- 
cepting a transom and a key-hole. I 
entered this room. 

"What a love of a place for devel- 
oping pictures!" I said hoarsely. 
Then I cried in a loud voice, "Let 
there be light ;" but the matches were 
not, and there was no light. 

What I did in that room might have 
been "light house keeping," but if 



12 MOSSES FROM 

you had heard things drop from my 
hands, down, down into utter dark- 
ness, you wouldn't have called it so. 
I don't know what I partook of that 
evening, for only at rare intervals did 
I find the way to my mouth — and 
then, when I did, I gulped her down 
without regard to "race or color." 

I said my prayers though. Some- 
how the darker it is the easier it is to 
find the place by your bedside to 
kneel. I remember just what I 
prayed: "Dear God, let me go right 
to sleep and forget all about every- 
thing and not wake up till ten 
o'clock." 

And God did. 

Which is another way of taking a 
Sedative. 

The next moraing I sat up in bed 
with a start. My window was open 
and I could hear the chirp and twit- 
ter of a little bird for it was spring- 
time in the land. "But, surely, 
surely," I cried, "spring hath no 
word in all her vocabulary to describe 
the smell in my nostrils." 



A ROLLING STONE 13 

* 'Boiled onions !" whispered a little 
demon in my ear. 

"That is the word," I muttered, 
"onions !" 

The transom and the keyhole which 
proved such poor conductors of light 
did beautifully in conducting the 
rays of onions to my nose. 

The morning waned, but the supply 
of onions did wo^ wane. "Man does 
not live by onions alone," I cried, 
"can't that woman, if woman it be, 
cook anything else?" 

It seemed she could, for pres- 
ently the little demon whispered : 
"Cabbage, boiled dinner!" 

After a time I crossed the hall to 
the store room, where my wood was 
piled. Reader, I knew that was my 
wood — anybody who stops to consider 
knows it too, yet when a wild-eyed 
woman came in upon me and an- 
nounced that "that there wood, she'd 
have me know, belongs to the gen- 
'leman what owns this buildin'!" I 
dropped it and ran, and not until the 



14 MOSSES FROM 

^'gen'leman" himself swore that he 
didn't own a stick of it, did I dare to 
touch it. 

Even then I looked over my 
shoulder with fear and trembling, for 
I had a fearful presentiment that 
this avenging woman was the onion 
lady. 

That same afternoon as I was pass- 
ing an open door I heard someone 
singing such a sweet, cheery song 
that I stopped to catch a glimpse of 
the singer. Ah, I was pleased ! Such 
a, dear little woman, dainty and sweet 
and white-haired! I remembered old- 
fashioned pictures I'd seen, and when 
she smiled at me I thought of my moth- 
er. She beckoned me in. It was love 
at first sight,just as it always is with 
me. As I was leaving, she said: "I 
daresay you haven't done much cook- 
ing yet and I'm going to give you a 
little of mine." I made no protest — 
why should 1? It pleased her to give, 
and it pleased me to receive, so what 
mofe does anyone want? She halved 



A ROLLING STONE 15 

a pie and quartered a cake and then 
filled a china bowl with something, 
preserves no doubt — really,! thought, 
I must stop her. 

Then I heard her saying : 

"I almost know you're fond of on- 
ions — my husband and I like them so 
and I have to cook them fresh every 
morning so he can have them cold for 
lunch." 

I murmured that maybe he'd want 
them. 

"Oh no, I'll cook fresh ones in the 
morning," she said in her cheery 
-way. 

I carried them home to my room. I 
•didn't touch the pie or the cake, but, 
reader, I ate every scrap in that on- 
ion bowl and licked my chops for 
more. 'Twould have been all the 
same to me if it had been a bowl of 
■castor oil or of catnip tea for I wasn't 
feeding a dainty palate but a hungry, 
homesick, aching heart. I would 
have swallowed a whale if I thought 
it would please anyone. 



16 MOSSES FROM 

The following morning when the 
little demon whispered in my ear I 
ordered him behind me, and I said, 
''God bless her! How good those on- 
ions do smell." 

And my heart was lighter for hav- 
ing this reminder of her presence. 

"Better a dinner of onions where 
love is," I muttered, and then 
laughed at my own folly, there being 
no one else to do it. 

Not long after, a great lady came 
to call on me. She was the wife of 
the minister of the First Presbyterian 
Church in this city. She weighed, 
say three hundred pounds. I do hope 
her eyes were not the windows of her 
soul for if they were they must have 
been washed in butter milk and blu- 
ing. She sat down in my own little 
chair : I heard it squeak. So did she, 
and she asked if there were many 
mice in this "Institution." 

Then the things which served 
her for eyes lighted on my books. 
"Oh, did I love to read? She just 



A ROLLING STONE 17 

lived on reading — poetry was her 
specialty. Was I fond of poetry!" 

In what contrary hour was I born 
that I, like Peter, should deny what 
I love? I looked her in her butter- 
milk eye and told her I couldn't 
abide it. 

She was shocked. I was glad. Was 
it possible I didn't care for Browning 
or Shakespeare or Shelley or Keats or 
any of those lovely writers? 

"Quite possible," I said, looking 
straight at those eyes. 

"Of course," she said, "you don't 
care for Riley — " 

Then the cock crew thrice and I 
bolted. When I returned I took the 
conversation by the horns and led it 
myself — Was she fond of onions? I 
asked. I just lived on 'em day and 
night, I said. 

Then Mrs. Minister's eyes com- 
menced to bulge and I could have 
knocked them off with a poker, only 
I feared spilling buttermilk on my 
carpet. 



18 MOSSES FROM 

I then went on to tell her that if 
she'd sniff I'eal hard she could prob- 
ably smell onions cooking even now, 
as someone in this "Institution" was 
almost always fixing them. 

She went. She thinks I'm crazy. I 
think so too. 

When she had entirely disappeared 
I cried, and then went and got dear 
old "Riley" and kissed the brown 
covers and turned over the pages — 
not that I did not know every one by 
heart but I was just "taking stock." 
I felt as if someone had been trying 
to swipe my pet lambs. 

Then I ran in where the Lady of 
the Onions dwelt and read her "Out 
to Old Aunt Mary's" in my best 
voice, and when I succeeded in bring- 
ing tears to her eyes I was happy, and 
Jim 'n me adopted her at once as one 
of "the relations.'' 

But oh, it wasn't because the min- 
ister's wife was fat and had bluing 
eyes that I acted so mean ! I wouldn't 
have cared how puffy her cheeks were 



A ROLLING STONE 19 

if only her mouth hadn't been so 
little and hard and horrid; and some- 
how she made you feel cold and nasty 
and lonesome, and you almost knew 
she'd hold her skirts away from the 
dear old onion lady, and be "bored to 
death" if s/ie ever went "Out to Old 
Aunt Mary's." She would weep at 
the reading of "Had a Hare-lip, Joney 
had," by the Reverend Mr. Minister, 
but if she ever met a real live Joney, 
in the flesh, sitting next her in church 
she'd roll out of the pew and pass by 
on the other side. 

Well, may her bones rest in peace, 
if she's got any ! Perhaps when she 
"shuffles off that mortal coil" she 
wears they will come to light. 

There are thoughts that lie too deep 
for words and 1 guess that's what is 
the matter here. I want a word,a nice 
strong word that I can back up with 
an exclamation point. 

I like exclamation points : I'd like 
to use one after every step I take. The 
word itself must be stirring and origi- 



20 MOSSES FROM 

nal — something to appeal to the hearts 
of my hearers and not a wicked, 
naughty word. It would be so easy 
if it were not for this stipulation ; as 
it is, though, I've asked for too 
much. I'll use that mark anyhow! 
So there ! 

My room being in the tip-top story, 
its windows command a varied and 
interesting view. 

The ships on the Bay, the mount- 
ains beyond; nearer, the Butcher's 
and Baker's and candle-stick Maker's 
and sundry back yards decorated from 
corner to corner with clothes-lines, all 
in full bloom. There are some women 
who wash six days in the week and on 
the seventh hang their bedding out 
to air. 

1 have been watching a little yellow 
dog in one of these back yards. I 
could see his small tail wagging and 
I knew by the wistful expression on 
his nose that he was hungry. I could 
tell by the turn of his tail and the cut 
of his hail that he was no aristocrat, 



A ROLLING STONE 21 

but just a hungry, forsaken little 
street waif. 

A woman appeared on the scene. 
She stooped to pick up a stone. She 
gruntel — not that I heard her, but 
no woman of her size could help it. I 
looked at the stone in her hand ; I 
looked at the little yellow dog ; I 
winced. In my mind's eye I could 
see the wagging tail hung low be- 
tween the shaggy legs. What mat- 
ter if it wasn't the latest novelty in 
tails, nor his hair of a stylish cut, I 
couldn't bear to see the way he'd look 
back over his shoulder and whine. 
Then the woman lifted her arm ; the 
dog yelped, and his tail disappeared 
in the manner I had foreseen. 

For a moment I hated that woman 
with a fierce hatred, and yet, she had 
done a very natural thing. When 
things whine to us for what we can- 
not give: for sympathy or a bone when 
our hearts and our cupboards are 
both bare, why, we haul off and hit 
'em. "A stone for bread," for so it is 
written. 



22 MOSSES FROM 

When I came to myself I discovered 
a tear on my eyelid. "In the name of 
Sentimental Tommy," I said, "what 
are you crying about?" 

"Nothin', " I answered. 

"You aren't crying over a dirty 
little yellow dog are you.?" 

"Yes ma'am." 

"Do you suppose for an instant 
that he's the only hungry dog in this 
city? Don't you know there are mill- 
ions of 'em?" 

"Yes ma'am." 

And then all of a sudden this 
small dog became of Lilliputian size, 
and his suffering grew oh, so small and 
insignificant compared with what was 
daily borne by dogkind in general. 

I had thought of stealing down the 
back stairway and buying some dog 
meat on the side, and patting his head 
and calling him ''Gip" after my own 
little doggie that's dead. 

But now I was discouraged- — for 
what does one hungry dog, more or 
less, matter anyhow? 



A ROLLING STONE 23 

*'Unto the least of these poor dog- 
gies" — whispered a still, small voice, 
and I slipped down the back stair- 
way. I came home happy in know- 
ing that one dog had had his fill that 
day. 

The Lady of the Onions has been in 
for a chat. She has told me of a 
most incredible thing. She saw a 
young lady on the street, wearing 
rings on her thumbs ! "A little off, 
perhaps," I suggested. But, no! 
She was very much "on," it ap- 
peared. 

"She wore a beautiful dress," said 
the lady, "all trimmed inside and 
outside — mostly inside — with lovely 
pink silk, and she had to hold her 
skirt most wrong side out to get to 
show the trimming in it. But 'twas 
mighty pretty though ! Still, it does 
seem like it would be handier to 
have things trimmed right side out." 
It did seem so. ' 

"But why in the world did she put 
those pretty rings on her thumbs?' 



24 MOSSES FROM 

she appealed to me once more. I 
ventured that perhaps they were too 
large for her fingers and this idea 
pleased her so well that she went 
away believing. As for myself, I 
knew in the innermost recess of my 
new tan shoe that I had fibbed mon- 
strously. I feared, and yes, was al- 
most certain, that this was but a new 
fad — this thumb business. Perhaps 
as yet it was only known to the cream 
of the "four hundred" — but how 
soon, ah how soon, would every little 
forsaken orphan be spending her last 
week's wages to purchase a brass ring 
to wear on her thumb ! 

"How long, oh Lord, how long," 
I cried, "before we'll have to wear 
rings on our big toes and go bare- 
foot to show them?" 

Speaking of the "four hundred" 
reminds me of my Aunt Cynthia. 
She was the dearest old lady, but a 
trifle back-woodsy — only I wouldn't 
advise anyone else to say as much. 
One day we passed a very elegant 
young lady on the street. 



A EOLLING STONE 25 

"Who's that?" asked Auntie. "Oh, 
one of the creams!" I answered in- 
differently. 

"The what?" 

"Belongs to the upper crust," I 
explained, but Auntie looked va- 
<jant. 

"She's one of the 'four hundred' !" 
I said impatiently. 

"I see," she said; "well it's a 
mercy, there's only four hundred of 
'em ; I guess we can hold our own yet 
awhile," was her placid comment. 

Dear Aunt Cynthia ! She never 
knew that it's "de quality" and not 
^'de quantity" that makes this old 
world go round. Never knew that if 
^'de quality" wear rings in their 
noses there isn't the ghost of a show 
but what "de quantity" must have 
their noses bored and be ringed at 
once. 

But then it's nice being a "cream" 
and dressing sweet and even wearing 
rings on one's thumbs if it bring any 
pleasure. A woman's a woman for a' 



26 MOSSES FROM 

that, if — she don't lace! No woman, 
can go on being a really, truly 
woman and lace at the same time. I 
know whereof I speak, for I've tried 
it. Just a teenty bit so's I could get 
my bran new gown together where it 
hooked under the arm. I bore it 
exactly one hour by the clock, and 
during that time I only breathed 
twice. I had grievous symptoms of 
apoplexy. My heart came up in 
my throat for air, and my thumb 
and forefinger sought my pulse ! 
Heavens ! I had no pulse ! Yes, there 
it was, but how feeble! Then it 
stopped. My heart fluttered once in 
my throat ; the table and book-case 
stood on their head ; then all wa& 
still. I had ceased to breathe. 

I bolted, and in tv/o minutes time 
I was once again a live being and my 
heart was where it had first been 
placed. I will now quote from a 
great writer, who puts it rather 
strongly in these lines : 



A ROLLING STONE 27 

"Wear rings on your thumb-joints 

And bells on your toes; 

Your skirts wrong side out 

And your hats on your nose ; 

Wear beads strung with nick-nacks 

And powder your face ; 

But for love of your womanhood 

Girls, do not lace !" 

But not all the king's horses nor all 
the king's men can stop this unless 
writers of current literature cease 
having their heroines tall and slender, 
with waists so small that the hero 
can wind his arm twice around. 
Some day I shall write a novel — not 
now, not till I get this thing done — 
but some day. I'll take the exact 
measurement of my own immediate 
waist (all figures omitted here) and 
I'll have the heroine possessed of 
such a form. I know it will be a dis- 
appointment to many of my dear 
readers and to the hero himself, but 
I have bethought me of a sort of 
compromise. I shall have the hero's 
right arm twice its natural length. 
This may be painful to him at fireit, 
but I know my noble hero ! I know 



28 MOSSES FROM 

he will cry out through set teeth 
that he is willing to bear this or any- 
other pain if by so doing his own 
darling pet of a sweetheart will be 
enabled to breathe freely as God 
meant her to. 

Won't it be soul-stirring? In the 
rooms adjoining mine is a new baby. 
It has such a "weary Willie" way of 
crying that I know it isn't onto its 
job yet. It takes a long time, much 
patience and strong lungs to learn to 
cry so it pays. A person who can't 
cry long and loudly is generally 
thought to be a failure, (oh, did Josh. 
Billings say that?) 

I'm rather sorry this baby came 
when it did, to be my little neighbor. 
It's a dear innocent love of a darling 
little baby-aby, I know, and I love it 
dearly in Song and Tradition, be- 
tween book covers; but someway 
when the dear one cries in print it 
doesn't have that realistic touch as 
when only a veil intervenes betwixt 
us twain. 



A ROLLING STONE 29 

Babe, get printed ! I know there 
is a large supply of accepted Mss. al- 
ready on hand, but surely someone 
will print you, and then you can 
whoop her up bloody murder. 

And yet, noise is healthy. I know 
it to be so. And it's the very spice 
of existence. I revel in thunder 
storms and a "Hot time" generally, 
up in the clouds. The cable car, the 
lumbering dray, the newsboy, all are 
dear to my heart. At night when 
the cable stops I waken at once and 
sleep returneth not unto me for an 
hour. A lumber wagon hath memo- 
ries in every rumble, memories of a 
time when freckles were the delight 
of mine eye and the sun-bonnet re- 
mained on its peg in the hall, while 
I sat astride a yellow pumpkin, the 
very topmost one on the load, and 
the rumble of the wagon was music 
to my ear. Ah me ! But there are 
noises and NOISES! This baby is 
the second kind. 

One Sunday I hungered for rest 



30 MOSSES FROM 

and silence. I found it at the end of 
a certain street car line, by a little 
lake in a grove of pines. 

*'In through the woods' green solitudes, 
Fair as the Lord's Own Day!" 

I murmured as I gazed, and a little 
bird sang like mad, — then silence ; 
not so much as the dip of an oar on 
the lake. There was too much silence. 
I felt some as I do when the cable 
stops running. I fell to wondering if 
I'd enjoy living in Eden now. "Eden 
is out of date, a back number," I 
mused. "A body would miss the 
smoke and the buzzing and rushing 
and crushing," and then I forgot to 
think. 

Rest, rest, rest ! That was all I 
asked. 

And the Pines kept singing in un- 
dertone : ' 'In through the woods' 
green solitudes." 

And a little bird trilled response : 
"Fair as the Lord's Own Day." 

Eden is all right, it is loe who are 
out of date. 



A ROLLING STONE 31 

I have composed a rhyme. I regret 
that I have not space wherein to print 
it, but owing to the large supply of 
Mss. on hand I shall be unable to do 
«o. However, this does not reflect on 
the merit of the piece, etc., etc. No, I 
haven't room here for it. I simply 
Avished to tell you that after compos- 
ing it I found myself to be "The 
idle singer of an empty day." No, 1 
■err ; "The empty singer of an idle day." 

However, I'd rather be idle than 
empty. A rolling stone gathers no 
moss. I like moss and it's time I was 
gathering some. I've rolled about till 
it's all knocked off and my sides are 
sore for the want of it. When I'm 
dead and gone I wish to be always 
thought of as sitting by the roadside 
gathering moss. Heretofore I've been 
unable to do this. You remember I've 
lived with my relatives and slumbered 
on parlor sofas. Then too, I've sat 
under College Profs, from my youth. 
Not that I ever wore any moss olf by 
«tudy; I usually put one half hour 



32 MOSSES FROM 

of good study on my books and spent 
the remaining hours worrying because 
I hadn't studied longer. 

Then I have kept a college Library ! 
True, too true, the dust was many 
cubits deep on shelf and book, and 
there was madness in my method, 
still the grass wasn't allowed to grow 
under my feet nor the moss to gather 
on my back. 

And what time, pray, have I had- 
for collecting mosses during these 
latter days? 

I've spent six weeks getting ready 
to go away to school; stayed one 
month by the clock, and spent six 
weeks gettiug ready to come back. 

This beats the record of most roll- 
ing stones. 

In those days I dreamed of a golden 
time when I might "lie at anchor" 
and gather moss "fore and aft" to 
use an expression whose purport I'm 
not exactly "up" on. 

While I'm here I'll tell you what I 
know about marine matters. I know^ 



A ROLLING STONE 33 

a ship when I see one, and a large 
body of water from a mill pond. I 
know that a sailor and a Chinaman 
aren't necessailly one and the same 
being. I know if I ever went out in a 
boat all alone it would be just to feed 
the fishes, with no intention of ever 
coming home any more. I know if I 
ever got sea-sick on board I'd get off 
board and walk. 

My brother has proved that water 
can be walked on, if stirred to the 
right consistency and placed in a re- 
frigerator to cool. He has also proved 
that the earth is really flat after all, 
just as Columbus did — no, didn't — or 
did he? anyhow he did it or didn't it 
in 1942. 

Babe is weeping again and I must 
retire to the bed and stuff my ears 
with pillow. To think that I must al- 
ways fall asleep with my fingers 
jammed into my ear-sockets ! 

It must have been a dreadful thing 
to remain in the ark forty days and 
forty nights with nothing to read. 



34 MOSSES FROM 

At that time Hawthorne was entirely 
unknown and Riley was not yet born. 
Of course, the Bible and Shakespeare 
and David Copperfield had been 
written, but very crudely, as type- 
writing was only in embryo then. 

Dwelling on those olden days makes 
me turn with gladness to my own 
little book-case, filled with a "few 
well-chosen books." 

I stop to call the roll : 

"Pilgrim's Progress.'" — Absent. 

"Has anyone seen Pilgrim's Prog- 
ress lately?" 

"No ma'am, not since you gave him 
to little Johnny Allen." 

''Spurgeon's Sermons!" — Gone. 
"Philosophy of Education!"— Lost. 

(This is bad, very bad!) 

"Riley!"— Here. 

"House of Seven Gables !"— Present. 
"Chestnuts !"— Here. 
"Saintly Thoughts of a Little Girl!"— 
Dead. Etc, etc. 

These books, absent company ex- 
cepted are all dear to me — even the 



A ROLLING STONE 35 

covers. Who was it laughed at an 
old gentleman who asked a book clerk 
for five middling sized blue books and 
five middling sized red books; and to 
be "pertikular about the readin' to 
have it plenty large?" Well, whoever 
laughed needn't have done it for size 
and color do make a difference. 

I never feel content while reading 
Hawthorne unless I have in my hand 
a certain brown styled book just large 
enough to fit in the hollow of my 
hand. Hawthorne in any other 
garb is not quite Hawthorne to me. 
The mere sight of one of these books 
will carry me back a thousand miles 
and more than a thousand days, to a 
seat in a certain willow tree, where 
I perched for two days reading 
"House of Seven Gables." It was 
meat and drink to me, for I had been 
slowly starving to death on two hun- 
dred or more of Bertha M. Clay's, 
interspersed with Rosa N. Carey and 
Mary J. Holmes, — with E.P. Roe for 
dessert. How I ever passed safely 



36 MOSSES FROM 

through is more than I can say. I 
only know there was left a taste in 
my mouth such as might be produced 
by fifty cents worth of chocolate 
creams, three dishes strawberries — 
three slices nut cake and one floating 
island. My mind must have been 
wormy, I know; but when my mother 
suggested such a thing and intimated 
that my sweet disposition was spoil- 
ing on me I flew into a regular worm 
fit. 

Hawthorne saved my life. At fif- 
teen I entered the Foe age and 
"Ravens never flitting" and "Beauti- 
ful Annabelle Lee's," "Misty 'mid 
regions of Wier" and "Ghoul haunted 
regions of Wier," and all sorts of 
ghastly, ghostly haunted things went 
floating though my brain. In two 
months' time I had cast him aside 
and was wearing the covers oif from 
"Lorna Doone" But the story itself 
never did grow threadbare and in 
spite of my destructive disposition it 
still holds for me the old time spell. 



A ROLLING STONE 37 

When I first read "Jane Eyre" I 
was just beginning to have "opinions" 
and "ideas" and I thought it befitting 
my place in life to air these as much 
as possible. 

In the first place, Mr. Rochester 
wasn't a good man — even Jane ac- 
knowledged that. Neither need any- 
one think that his saying his prayers 
along at the last of the book was go- 
ing to be enough, he'd have to say 
'em every half hour for a year to 
make up for all his sins ! 

And why did Jane have to say she 
had green eyes.? We need never have 
known it if she had kept still. 

And it did Feem as if Mr. Roches- 
ter might have gotten well in both his 
eyes while he was about it. He was 
ugly enough, goodness knows, with 
his hair and eyebrows and whiskers 
all singed off and his arms broke and 
his head bumped! And then to be 
blind as a bat — oh, dear ! 

Those were my sentiments at fif- 
teen. 



38 MOSSES FROM 

Now I read "Jane Eyre" as I do 
the Bible : a passage here and another 
there. When I feel religious I read 
it, and when I feel sad or poetical or 
sweet or happy or almost anything ; 
sometimes for what is in it and some- 
times for what isn't in it. 

Oh, I'm not playing critic! I 
wouldn't dare to! But I'm just air- 
ing my feelings on this same. Though 
after all that is about all a critic can 
do : tells how he feels about it and 
makes believe it's you and I and 
Brown and Jones who feel that way. 
Instead of saying "J think this book 
is N. G." he asserts that without 
doubt "This book is N. G. and every- 
body with a grain of sense knows it !" 

I wrote an essay on criticism once. 
I first mentioned the Critic. In re- 
ferring again to said Critic I called 
him "he," the next time "she" and 
finally "it." I knew most critics 
were masculine and yet hadn't Mary 
Smith criticised my new hat shame- 
fully, likening it to a war-ship? 



A ROLLING STONE 39 

And she was feminine. So tohe sure, 
I used "it" just as men do when they 
can't remember to save their life 
wjiether the baby is "Mary" or 
"James." 

My father used to say of me: "She's 
the sweetest little baby boy alive, so 
it is!" 

I have been so lonesome this even- 
ing. I want to see my relations — 
even my wife's mother. 

Speaking of relatives reminds me : I 
was once the beloved friend and con- 
fidante of five diiferent relatives, all 
of whom hated the ground each other 
walked on. Each one thought I was 
just like herself. Mary would smile 
softly and say how like her I had be- 
come. 

Jane said I was just her living im- 
age. 

(Now Jane hated Mary and Mary 
hated Jane.) 

Aunt Matilda thought I took 
after her more'n I did my own mother. 
I was like her, actions and all. 



40 MOSSES FROM 

(Now Aunt Matilda couldn't abide 
Jane nor Mary, and vice versa with 
both Mary and Jane.) 

Cousin Rhoda said I seemed to take 
the words right out of her mouth and 
say 'em 'fore she'd fairly done think- 
ing them. "]Fe must be aheap alike," 
she thought. 

(Now Cousin Rhoda,Aunt Matilda, 
Mary and Jane hated each other, all 
vice versa and just like poison.) 

Aunt Abigail, for whom I was 
named, said I ought to have been her 
child, for we were nearer alike'n two 
peas. 

(Now Aunt Ab hated Aunt 
Matilda, Cousin Rhoda, Mary and 
Jane respectively and collectively, 
and they hated her in the same man- 
ner.) 

I went through rich scenes : I suf- 
fered! 

"How can this be," I cried, "if I 
am like Aunt Matilda, how then can 
Aunt Ab love me?" 

"If I am the living image of Jane 



A ROLLING STONE 41 

^ow can Mary think me like herself 
-and love me?" 

* 'How can each one love one who is 
so like the other ones whom they each 
one of them hate, respectively, vice 
versa and like poison?" 

Such things have driven men mad. 

Yet it could be explained if only 
one could keep each one from the 
other ones who hated each the other 
and all the rest, respectively, collec- 
tively and like poison, excepting her 
•own self and me. 

Will no one help me? 

It must be a beautiful thing to 
liave command of the English lan- 
guage. I do wish something could be 
invented so one would only have to 
think his thoughts in a nice little 
machine and have them come out in 
good, plain, old-fashioned English. 

Oh, to get this relative business 
straight before I die ! 

But I wander. I was lonesome, 
didn't I say? Well, whether I said 
«o or not, I was, and I longed for any- 



42 MOSSES FROM 

one of those relatives alone, without 
any of the others who each — there 
I go ! Help ! Murder ! ! 

Let's change the subject. It needs 
a change : everything does. I need it^ 
need it bad! If I had change I 
wouldn't be lonesome but would be 
planning what to buy to-morrow. I 
did have a little change this morning 
but it took it all for postage stamps for 
the letters I wrote to Mary and Ja — (I 
mean kindred. Here let me say that 
never again in my presence do I wish 
those names mentioned. The word 
"kindred" will 3onvey your meaning 
without giving details or calling 
names.) 

It's wrong to call names. I have 
been called names all my life long. If 
ever I meet the man who first called 
me "queer," there'll be trouble. 

It has clung to me always; no mat- 
ter how hard I've tried to live it down 
and be just like other folks, still peo- 
ple have wagged their heads and 
cried among themselves, saying : 



A ROLLING STONE 43 

"Did we not hear it said this per- 
son was accounted 'queer,' by 
many?" 

It is interesting to note how many 
different words are used to denote one 
and the same quality. There are cer- 
tain words that appeal to certain 
classes of people : If my enemies ga- 
lore wish to describe me, they call me 
"queer;" my semi-enemies remark 
indifferently that I'm rather an "odd 
body;" those who feel kindly toward 
me but yet do not know my real 
worth, say I am a little "eccentric." 
My own mother and two others have 
said that I'm a truly "lovable, 
sweet, unusual" girl. 

This use of words as given above, is 
called wordogogy, meaning, the Sci- 
ence of Words. 

For five long days now I have heard 
a voice singing anthems to the new 
baby in the next rooms. First, I 
thought it was the mother, but since 
then I've learned that it's, a young 
auntie who works in a telephone office. 



44 MOSSES FROM 

I hadn't supposed this possible of a 
telephone girl. Many long years 
have I listened to her sweet voice 
through the 'phone, calling: "Num- 
ber, please?" 

And again: "Line's busy, call 
again !" 

And once again : ' 'Pike 1-4-2 will 
not reply!" 

I have listened to this until I had 
learned to love her dear tones ; but 
now, day after day she rends my heart 
asunder and I cry: "Babe, howl loud- 
er!" and baby does. 

One should keep one's place in this 
world. Because this young woman's 
voice soundeth sweet through a 
'phone is no reason for her setting 
herself up as a baby prima-donna. 

I love music, though! I have a 
cousin who sings songs without 
words, while I sing words without 
song — I sing them through my nose 
in my elocution class, Mondays and 
Wednesdays. Tuition free! I know 
a dear lady who sent her only 



A EOLLING STONE 45 

daughter away to ,get voice cul- 
ture. 

Well, and she got it ! 

But when she returned we girls had 
ourselves vaccinated for fear we 
might catch it. Hers was a severe 
case and her throat is not real strong 
and well yet. I always have been 
afraid of throat diseapes. 

But there is music in the world, 
and sweet singing. I heard the 
sweetest I shall ever hear a long time 
ago. — Sometimes I hear it yet, in 
dreams, when I have fallen asleep, 
weary — with my face all wet with 
tears. It is the same voice I used to 
hear when I had the earache and 
mother rocked me to sleep; and those 
are the same songs she used to sing 
too ; one was about a poor little boy 
who was blind, and it had twenty 
verses. I know noiv how mother's 
throat must have ached, but then I 
only knew that the ache in my ear 
grew fainter and fainter and by the 
time the twentieth verse was done — I 
was asleep. 



46 MOSSES FROM 

Voice culture is a lovely thing, and 
when I'm strong and well I love to 
hear the singing of earth's great ones, 
but oh, when I have the earache then 
let mother sing to me : 

"That little boy was blind." 



It is the dinner hour. I hear foot- 
steps approaching. I know their 
gender is masculine and their boots 
are 16x54. The waves of sound 
smiting upon my eardrum tell me 
this. Some women claim they can 
tell when their husbands are returning 
by their steps on the walk. Of course 
they can if they go about it right. 
All they have to do is to find the 
exact size of husband's foot. Then 
ascertain how large a dent on the 
ear-drum has been made by sound 
waves produced by said foot hitting 
the sidewalk. Then when a step is 
heard on the walk just measure the 
dent made on the eardrum and if it 
corresponds to the dent caused by 



A ROLLING STONE 47 

■said husband's foot, why, it's him. 
(Only be quick about it or he'll get 
in 'fore you get it done.) 

If there is any student who doesn't 
understand this I refer him to Dr. — 
whom I sat under in Physics in '72. 
When I used to keep the college 
library I could clearly distinguish the 
president's step from those of profes- 
sors or students. Not by the above 
approved method, but by one quite as 
satisfactory. He always came down 
the long hall on tip-toe ; stood at the 
•door for five minutes to discover if 
there was hilarity within and then 
burst in like a shot ! This manner df 
his coming gave me plenty of time 
to hide all traces of the rhyme I'd 
been making about his chin ; to hush 
the students and resurrect the book 
of classification which. I sat on during 
his absence. Only once did he sur- 
prise me, and that was when he came 
down the hall walking after the man- 
ner of man : Then was I undone ! 

This president was a good man, 



48 MOSSES FROM 

the beloved of his flock, but our 
natures were strangely at variance. 
He looked upon me as librarian, one- 
who was drawing a small stipend and 
vsras expected to work a little for it. 
I couldn't see it in that light; here-^ 
tofore, from my observation of libra- 
rians as a class I had come to the 
conclusion that a librarian is a very 
fortunate person, one who has a snap* 
and has struck it rich all 'round. I 
thought her sole duty was to sit with 
her feet on a stool and read the books 
committed to her charge. She was- 
paid, I supposed, because she was a 
special favorite of the board of 
trustees. This is what induced me 
to apply for the job. 

But when the president gradually^ 
instilled into my mind the fact that 
things were not to be thusly, I re- 
signed. I couldn't do otherwise, en- 
tertaining as I did these sentiments 
of freedom, liberty and equality. 

But that was long ago. Now as I 
review that olden time my only 



A ROLLING STONE 49 

wonder is that I didn't get my neck 
wrung like a chicken. If asked what 
I consider man's strongest traits of 
character, I should reply : "Patience, 
kindness and all charity: Librarians 
a specialty." 

The windows of my room do not 
embrace a view of the whole bay, and 
though I do not see it, yet, I know of 
a certainty that a steamboat ap- 
proacheth. I know it — not by its 
foot-step — but by its voice. It has a 
strong full voice but I'm afraid it has 
caught "culture." It begins low like 
the moan of one who has a tooth-ache ; 
then it rises till it reaches the howl 
of those who cry in torment; higher 
up the scale it touches the key of all 
human misery, and then follows a 
prolonged note and in vision I see a 
pair of forceps grasping an ulcerated 
tooth. Behind all these strains of 
music is a little gurgling note of Sa- 
tanic glee, and in vision again I be- 
hold the dentist, who with dancing 
eye wields the forceps and gloats over 
the length of that bloody tooth. 



50 MOSSES FROM 

My nerves are raw and bleeding; 
my ear drum punctured ! My brain 
throbs! Oh, if one could only be fore- 
warned of this, but no man knoweth 
the hour of its coming. The time 
card says at such and such a time 
will the "Flyer" enter her dock. At 
the stated time I place my ears be- 
neath the pillows and leave them 
there for what seems an hour, then 
I remove them and sit down as is my 
wont. At that instant the voice ot 
the Flyer is heard in the land. 



"Hark ! hark ! the dogs do bark ! 

The beggars are coming to town. 
Some in rag-s and some in tags 

And some in a velvet gown." 

Old Ballad. 

One moment I see a frayed skirt 
and the ragged fringe of a shawl 
fluttering in the wind. The next, an 
Easter hat and a silk lined gown. 

But they're all beggars just the 
same. I'm glad of that — glad the 
ones in the velvet gowns have to beg 



A ROLLING STONE 51 

for happiness exactly as often as the 
ones in the ragged shawls. 

True, they knock at different doors : 
* 'Please ma'am, might I get a little 
something to eat? I'd be willing to 
work for it," says the waif at the 
door of a rich lady. 

"Please ma'am, might I come to 
your parties and teas? I'd be willing 
to work for it," says the rich lady to 
society's ring-leader. 

*'Please might I have a moment of 
rest and peace and contentment? I'd 
be willing to work for it!" and Soci- 
ety's leader knocks at the door of her 
own closed heart. 

Often as not the door goes shut 
with a bang and the bolt is made fast. 

But here is life in a nut-shell : 

If you're hungry, work I 

If you can't get work, beg! 

If you can't beg, steal! 

This is human nature and this is 
why I must steal — into my little dark 
room and do dark housekeeping. I 
hate to, I wasn't brought up to it, 



52 MOSSES FROM 

but "Oh, I am hungry!" said little 
Tim or Tommy or Johnny or somebody 
with a name mentioned in my elocu- 
tion book. 

After all, what's ir a name! A 
little boy is just as hungry, whether 
his name is Tim or Tommy or Abi- 
gail, which is mine, you remember, I 
being named after my aunt. 

What's in a name? Would not the 
works of Riley be just as sweet by 
any other name? No! a thousand 
times, No ! Do you suppose I'd ever 
have read a one of them if they'd 
been called "The Book of Ezra," or of 
"Nehemiah," or "Obediah," or of 
"Amos?" Never! 

What's in a name? Why, if Bill 
Nye had signed his name to "Saintly 
Thoughts of a Little Girl" you'd 
have to laugh in spite of yourself. 
And if I should write a poem and 
sign Kipling's name I'd be famous 
at once — but Kipling wouldn't, not 
so much so — nit ! 

Maybe a rose is just as sweet by 



A ROLLING STONE 53 

any other nnme, but I'll bet if you'd 
tell your sweetheart you were going 
to send her a box of "cabbages," 
(meaning roses) I'll bet you'd get 
the G. B. at once. 

G. B., gentle reader, means "good 
bye." It doesn't mean that to a col- 
lege bred boy, but to his papa and 
mamma that's what it signifies. 
When he writes home and says the 
president has given him the G. B., 
they of course believe that the pres- 
ident has gone away, tenderly saying 
"good bye" to their darling son. 



"To him that hath shall be given." 

To him that hath 10 cents shall be 
given a place to spend it. 

To him that hath a wife shall be 
given a mother-in-law. 

To him that hath 11 offsprings shall 
be given one more to make it 12. 



"To him that hath not shall be 
taken away even that which he hath." 



54 MOSSES FROM 

I know this to be true. To him 
that hath not the wherewithal to pay 
his rent shall be taken away even the 
room which he hath, by the "gen'le- 
man that owns the buildin'." 

The tramp knows it to be true. 
To him that hath not any shirt 
shall be taken away even the one 
which he hath, swiped from a lady's 
clothes line. For this is the law of 
the Medes and Persians, of the United 
States and Great Britain. 

I've never yet mentioned what 
country I dwell in. I own several 
castles in Spain ; two on the Ehine 
near Fair Bingen, and one estate in 
England. But if you want to find 
me to home just call at this building 
an' the gen'leman what owns it will 
show you up. The elevator isn't 
running now but there are only four 
flights of stairs to climb, and going 
down you can "drop a nickle in the 
slot," mount the banisters and slide. 
Be careful not to knock the knob off 
the banister at the bottom. 



A ROLLING STONE 56. 

*'And the moon shines bright on 
the Wabash," shrieks the broken 
organ, grinding in the street below^ 
There are no words too strong to u^e 
in deridement of the organ grinder, 
and yet, I, being rather "queer" and 
''odd, to be sure," revel in this thing. 
The old Romans, you remember,when 
in trouble, delighted to hear the groans- 
of their slaves; it eased their own 
fierce pain^to know that someone else 
was suffering worse than themselves. 

That's me, precisely, exactly, hit- 
ting the nail right side up ! As I listen 
to the piteous organ grinder I know 
that there are depths of misery such 
as I have never sounded, and the 
louder he groans and the wilder he 
grinds the more contented I feel. 
However, I'm not entirely without 
mercy and when I think he's suffered, 
enough I go down and give him a. 
dime, and then come home, puffed up, 
patting myself on the back and hop- 
ing some good minister around the 
corner saw me do it. 1 shed a few 



56 MOSSES FROM 

frog tears and am then at peace with 
myself and all the world. 

"Bless the organ grinder!" "And 
the moon shines bright on the Wa- 
bash." 

I would rather rock all day long 
than to write a Dictionary. Rocking 
is my vocation. 

I am the only one of my family who 
takes after me in this excepting my 
little niece, who is said to.be like me 
in more ways than one. You bet I 
love her too ! 

Whenever she tears her apron from 
hem to neck band she is then said to 
be like her Aunt Abbie. If perchance, 
she cuts papers all over the carpet and 
then refuses to pick them up and gets 
sassy — she is again like her auntie. 
When she screams and kicks at table 
for two cups of coffee strong enough 
to float a turkey egg, she, of course, 
takes after auntie. 

Only when she's a good little girl 
and says her praj^ers then she's like 
papa and mamma and Uncle Moses. 



A ROLLING STONE 57 

Maybe they don't know that auntie 
is good and says her prayers too 
sometimes. My little niece isn't 
named for me, of which I'm glad, for 
whatever there may or may not be in 
most names, in mine there are seven 
of the ugliest letters in the alphabet. 
It isn't an inspiring name. Inspira- 
tion is a peculiar thing. It is gener- 
ally thought to be the quintessence of 
spirituality, but like most quintes- 
sences it comes done up in very earthy 
packages. I rise in the morning; I 
gaze out of the windows ; I say : why 
should I make one effort to-day, why 
perspire and hurry; what will it all 
matter one thousand years from date ; 
why need my eyes open more than is 
necessary or my feet move restlessly 
to and fro? I will eat a bite of break- 
fast not because I'm hungry but be- 
cause all men must eat as well as die. 

I prepare the coffee ; I take two 
sips and begin to prick up my ears ; 
four sips, my eyes pop open ; one half 
cup ; if this day should pass without 



58 MOSSES FROM 

my having tipped up a corner of the- 
universe then would I be 'indone ! One 
and one half cup, all things are pos- 
sible to me, I could remove mountains 
if I had the time, but I have no time- 
— I must hasten ; two cups, my nerves 
are being wound up by an invisible 
hand — they are taut now and my 
knees spring up when I walk just as- 
they did when I used to wear my elas- 
tics too tight ; Life is a great thing. 
There is much to do and I alone am 
left to do it. Let me hasten! There is^ 
inspiration in a coflPee cup. Mind 
though, and don't buy imitation coffee^ 
mixed with chickoree, found at all 
dealers. 

With coffee I generally eat a roll 
and a doughnut. At first I used to 
save the doughnut for dessert, eat- 
ing the roll as first course, but I soon, 
saw my mistake. -The sugar and 
shortening had all gotten into the roll^ 
and what had gotten into the dough- 
nut I never knew. It was called a 
"raised doughnut " but not all the 



A ROLLING STONE 59 

king's horses nor all the king's cows 
could ever have raised it an inch. It 
should be cut in thin slices, buttered 
and eaten slowly. Think on solemn 
things and never indulge in hilarity, 
for if it ever gets into your wind- 
pipe, you're a deader. When once 
eaten it sinks, settling somewhere in 
the toe of your shoe. I'm always 
scairt to death for fear it'll lodge in 
that little pocket that catches grape 
seeds and eggshells and things. 

Another night and another morn, 
and behold, it is another day ! Last 
evening I was enticed away to an en- 
tertainment which ended in an old- 
fashioned dance, "old as the hills," 
to the oa-looker, but a "new blue" to 
the dancer. Don't deceive yourself 
by thinking I was merely an on-look- 
er, neither was I a "wall-flow^er, " for 
I sat as far from the w^all as possible 
and so near to the dancers that a lady 
with an immense big sash caught her 
skirt binding, in one of its weakest 
places, on the toe of my shoe — there 
was a corn on that toe, too! 



60 MOSSES FROM 

As for my looking on, why, I 
danced every set, not with my feet, 
but with heart and eyes. I completely 
lost my individuality in the crowd. 
I was here and there and everywhere. 
Now I was that pretty girl with a face 
like a flower, making sweet eyes at her 
partner and flushing whenever she 
met his hand in the rollicking dance. 
Now, that dark eyed woman who was 
coquetting with her husband just as 
though they hadn't been married for 
forty years or more. Now, that jolly 
fellow who had such ado to keep from 
flying all to pieces. He swung his 
partner as if he were winning a battle, 
and the perspiration rolled down his 
face and mine too, 'twas such jolly 
hard work. And when the"greenies" 
got lost, as "greenies" will, why, 
there I was in the ring, laughing for 
all there was in it ; and once, I was 
one of the greenies myself, blushing 
and feeling awkward but happy 
through it all. 

And then — ah, somebody has awak- 



A ROLLING STONE 61 

ened me by punching an elbow 
through my rib. It was one of the 
wall flowers, so I perforce turned my 
attention to them. Many of them 
were quite pretty. 

"Do you never dance?" asked a 
young lady who had been on the floor 
every set. 

"No, indeed!" replied the wall- 
flower, "Mama doesn't like me to." 

Another said, "Papa didn't be- 
lieve in it." 

Another didn't "care for it." And 
yet another "never had learned and 
never intended to, and what was 
more, she wouldn't learn for any- 
thing." 

They were all looking sad and mis- 
erable. 

Dear girls! they were happy enough 
looking on only they were so afraid 
someone would think them miserable 
that they were miserable. So afraid 
the dancers would pity them ! Why, 
I'd like to see them pitying me; 
they'd be pitying one of their own 
gang if they did ! 



62 MOSSES FROM 

And here let me say to all ye merry- 
makers, ye who dance and ye who 
sing and play on stringed instruments, 
* 'Never pity anyone because they are 
not one of jou, for often and often 
their hearts are beating in time with 
every tap of your foot on the floor." 

JPity is getting threadbare — it's a 
poor thing now days. 

There was once a young lady. She 
and I pitied one another greatly. She 
pitied me because my skirts hung so 
abominably ; I pitied her because hers 
didn't, because her hair was dressed 
to a nicety and her hat a dream ; be- 
cause every detail of her costume was 
perfection itself. I pitied her, I say, 
believing as I did that no one could 
devote her time to such things and 
have any room left for higher 
thoughts. I called her "The Body," 
and looked upon her as a mere dress 
form. 

One day we met on a point over- 
looking the Bay. I had been sitting 
there alone, thinking "high thoughts" 



A ROLLING STONE 63 

;and glorifying nature, also congratu- 
lating myself that I was not as some 
'Others. Then something came be- 
tween me and the sun. It was The 
Body. 

Bitterness came into my heart. 
What right had she in such a place? 
Her sphere was at the milliner's or 
the hair dresser's. She desecrated 
this place and shut out the light. My 
mouth tasted of wormwood and I was 
•conscious to my finger tips that my 
hair was a thing of wildness and a 
grief forever; that my shoes had all 
the tan worn off and my skirt was 
out of plumb. And there she stood — 
The Body ! 

Suddenly she turned and faced me. 
Was that The Body? 

Her eyes were full of tears and her 
face was quivering strangely. Then I 
heard her saying: 

"Isn't it sweet and quiet here, and 
don't the mountains over yonder make 
you homesick? I live in dear old 
Montana," she added. 



64 MOSSES FROM 

Then our souls were knit together^ 
and I sidled up to her and we looked 
out at the blue Bay and the 
world of mountains beyond. I saw 
clearer and farther than ever before, 
for I looked through four eyes now^ 
and two of them were sweet and dark. 

Do dark eyes see better, or is it 
only because I am so dead tired of 
green? 

"A Yard of Roses," "A Yard of 
Pansies," or "A Yard of Puppies?" 
You all have them — everybody has — 
and they're framed and hanging over 
the door where "Home Sweet Home," 
done on card-board used to hang. 

For myself, I have "A Yard of Dan- 
delions." It has no frame excepting 
an old rickety three-rail fence, and it 
hangs right across the street. It isn't 
one of those 6rtcA;-yards I've men- 
tioned either, but is all by itself, void 
of house or chicken-coop. It's one of 
the few places in this world of utiliza- 
tion that has gone to waste and filled 
up with such rubbish as wild currant 



A ROLLING STONE 65 

bushes and big yellow dandelions. 
But I'm a wasteful being by nature, 
and so I glory in it, and so does a 
little bird I know who spends half 
his time singing "Glorias" to the sun 
and dandelions. 

Oh, if I only could lie down and 
tumble and roll in that green grass 
and pick my apron full of those wild 
flowers, and sing and laugh and hol- 
ler like a free born thing ! 

Well, why not, there's no law 
against it. 

No ! no law excepting a little bitter 
mocking one, not written but whis- 
pered and thought and spoken : "What 
would people think?" bears, as much 
weight as any legalized statement in 
Blackstone. 

But be independent! What is it to 
you what people think? If you want 
to sing and holler in a bed of dande- 
lions what matters it what anyone 
says ? 

Well then, I'm cornered, and the 
question is, "What would I, my very 



66 MOSSES FROM 

own self think, I who am old and full 
of years ; would not my bones wax 
old at my rising up and my sitting 
down ; would not my knees knock to- 
gether when I jumped? And lo, when 
I hollered how strange my voice would 
sound to my own ears ! 

No, I cannot, cannot do it! Would 
that I were that curlyheaded child of 
long ago who sat astride the yellow 
pumpkin and rode through her little 
world in state; who bored her brown 
toes in the mud and stored up sun- 
shine and freckles, scratches and 
blisters, daisies and dandelions all in 
a moment and for all time to come. 

Still, that child, happy in her play, 
was as one who is happy in slumber, 
entirely unconscious of the great, good 
thing that was hers ; she was happy 
but knew it not. So I wouldn't be 
that little girl after all, for when I'm 
happy I want to know it and be able 
to crow over it and philosophize 
about it. I hate to go to sleep at 
night, I want to stay awake and 



A ROLLING STONE 67 

enjoy and appreciate the grand sleep 
I'm having. 

So here I am back at the old i^lace 
and all I can do is to enjoy my dan- 
delions at a distance, and wish my 
little niece were here, then I'd have 
her do the singing and tumbling — 
have her take the happy part, and I'd 
stand by to tell her exactly how hap- 
py she ought to be and what a great, 
grand privilege was hers — whereat, 
she, thinking I was reproving her or 
scolding her, would set up a how^l 
and cry bloody murder and then — I'd 
have to spank her — and oh dear, that 
yard of dandelions is more trouble to 
me than an acre of puppies would be ! 

I'll not look at it any more. I'll 
look far, far away, where I see a big 
white pile of clouds — no, it's a moun- 
tain — it's Mt. Rainier! I used to see 
this mountain a long time ago in my 
geography, but it didn't look as it 
does now. It has changed wonder- 
fully. Then it was only a few little 
black marks whose name I couldn't 



68 MOSSES FROM 

remember. The fact that it was 14,- 
444 feet in height was of minor im- 
portance to me, and when asked for 
the figures I always replied, "44,414 
feet, ma'am." 

But it's changed since then. It is 
a great white mystery, and as I be- 
hold it, now, melting into the clouds ; 
now rising out clear against the blue 
sky with only its white crown in the 
mist, then am I minded of the Book 
of Revelations and of what John saw 
and heard ; and if I had seven candle- 
sticks with seven candles in them I'd 
light them at once as sort of a relig- 
ious rite. I love this old mountain 
so much more than I did when it was 
only a few black scratches in my 
geography. 

Geography never appealed to any 
of my emotions excepting to one of 
pity for myself when I realized how 
small my brain must be since I 
couldn't remember for twenty-four 
hours which dot was which and what 
it was named. I'd hate to be asked 



A ROLLING STONE 69 

to-day where the Bay of Biscay is. I 
know I should love it if I ever saw it 
in the flesh, a real live body of water 
and not a little squab of green on a 
musty old page. I'd love to sit by it 
all day long; to row on it and to 
dream by it — but don't expect me to 
know where it is. 

I tell you I don't know where any- 
thing is. I don't know where my 
hat pin is this very minute, nor my 
handkerchief nor my lead-pencil nor 
my gloves nor anything that is mine. 
I don't know^ where my subject is. I 
lost it long ago. My dandelions have 
shut up shop for the night so I can't 
find them either. They're lost some- 
where among the grasses and currant 
bushes. 

Things have come to a pretty pass, 
though, when you can lose a moun- 
tain like old Rainier, yet this have I 
done. It's somewhere, somewhere 
among the mists and the clouds — but 
where ! I've looked till my eyes ache, 
but I can't find my mountain, nor my 



70 MOSSES FROM 

hat pin, nor anything that's mine, and 
I'm mighty tired. 

A dew-drop face in a frill of lace, 
A streamer of ribbon blue ; 
A vision bright in a gleam of light, 
My sweetheart, that is you. 

A whiff of rose and there she goes 
Like a rainbow through the Blue. 
She cannot hide for the world is dyed 
With the radiance of her hue : 
My sweet-heart, that is you. 

After writing the above I felt so 
sorry to think no one ever writes 
poems to men sweethearts. Hasn't 
any one got a sweetheart who isn't a 
woman? Or is man such an ugly 
animal he can't be rhymed about in 
poems to sweethearts? I think not. 
It ought to be done and I'm the one 
to do it, so here goes : 

A sun-iiower face in the sweet embrace 
Of a collar built for two : 
A nose that's broke in a stream of smoke ; 
My sweet-heart that is you. 

A whiff of pipe and he goes like 

A shot gun fired by Dew — ; 

Pie cannot hide for his necktie's dyed 

To a shade that's rather— too ! 

My sweetheart, that is you. 



A ROLLING STONE 71 

I feel so much better. But there 
are some men who never are any- 
body's sweethearts. They never have 
anyone to love them or dry their 
tears or wash their pocket kerchiefs ; 
nobody to sew up their jumpers or 
put buttons on their overalls ; nobody 
to warm their cowhides wiien they 
are all damp with the dews of the 
irrigating ditch and soiled with clay 
from the highway. This lone man 
trudges home at night, but nobody 
lights his pipe for him as he sits by 
the fire and steams ; nobody runs up 
and kisses his tousled moustache and 
talks to him with a sweet caress in 
her voice. True he has had a wife — 
had her for twenty years — he has her 
yet! But he isn't her sweetheart. 
He used to be long ago, before the 
war — no, I err — it was she who was 
the sweetheart, his "little sweet- 
heart," and she is still, but he is just 
"Bill, her man." 

Maybe he's dead now, dear old fel- 
low! and his wife is living on the 



72 MOSSES FROM 

insurance money. Of course she calls 
him "her Willie" now, and wipes her 
froggy eyes on a black bordered hand- 
kerchief which she keeps in a black 
pocket which is sewed into a black 
apron which covers a black dress 
worn by a black woman with a black 
heart. May her bones rest in black ! 

As a rule relatives-in-law aren't 
loved. I never had a mother-in-law 
so I can't say as to that, but I dote on 
sisters-in-law. I have some eight or 
nine of them and I think this quali- 
fies me to express my opinion. 

They are most of them younger than 
I, only one may be a month or so 
older and another six weeks — but they 
are mostly younger, yet they all 
mother me and call me ' 'little Abbie ; ' ' 
and though I stand head and shoul- 
ders above them they take me under 
their wings and love me and show me 
how to darn my stockings and sew 
on my buttons. They seem to know 
by instinct how frail my knowledge 
is, for if I, perchance, offer to help 



A ROLLING STONE 73 

them a look of trouble creeps into 
their sweet eyes and they say : "Not 
now, darling. Run out and play — 
see," they cry, "see the pretty sun- 
shine!" So with glee in her heart 
and an infantile smile "little Abbie" 
Tuns out to play — for "little Abbie*' 
loves to play. 

Sometimes I sidle into the kitchen 
and watch my sweet sister-in-law with 
her sleeves rolled high, making pies. 
She does it so easy — so naturally! 
I reverence her as I gaze. Often I 
long for just a teenty bit of pie crust 
to make a little pie all my own and 
then sit down in a corner and gobble 
it up all by myself; but I never ask for 
I know 'twould bother. 

Of an evening she sits by and 
watches me with a sweet motherly 
smile while I paste pictures in my 
scrap-book. She wonders — wonders 
and ponders me in her heart, then 
turns with a wholly contented look to 
where, her "dearest, darling husband" 
sits reading his paper. By and by I 



74 MOSSES FROM 

kisF them good night and toddle off 
to bed to leave her telling of my cute 
little sayings and tricks during the 
day. And all the time unbeknown 
to them, I'm "mothering" them in my 
heart, smiling a little behind it all ; 
sorrowing when I foresee the sorrow 
they cannot, for after all they are 
only children and half of them, I know, 
forget to say their prayers from sheer 
happiness, so I have that to do for 
them though I never have told them 
of it. 

But the next day I'm ready to 
creep under their wings again for I'm 
only a lone chick in the world anyway. 

It's a peculiar thing to be all alone 
in the world. You carry your home 
about in your pocket and wherever 
you happen to light, there you set it 
up. When you leave you have just a 
trunk to pack, your heart to tear up 
wherever it's taken root, a little senti- 
ment to knock in the head, some 
idols to break, some memories to 
smuggle away in the Holy of your 



A ROLLING STONE 75 

heart,and then you set out and if you're 
wise you burn all behind you. It's 
lucky for you if you do not take root 
easily. As for me, I can never be in 
a place twenty-four hours but that 
my heart begins reaching out little 
feelers for something to cling to, and 
before I'm aware of it, it has taken a 
grip on the soil about it and "There 
am I, Caia," and that is ''home." 

Any old bench, any old tree, that I 
see for a number of days , becomes 
dear to me, and so it is I'm always 
having to break my own heart strings, 
for I cannot go about the world car- 
rying just any old thing I happen to 
see, for my trunk and my pockets are 
both small, and as for my heart, that 
is already full to bursting. 

When I leave this home of mine I 
know just how 'twill be. I'll want to 
take the whole room with me, all ex- 
cepting the wall paper, which must 
have been designed in a well favored 
year when crops were full and the 



76 MOSSES FROM 

harvest plenteous, for such a profu- 
sion of wheat as is lying around loose 
all over its surface I never saw before. 

One glimpse of this paper was 
enough to abolish forever all my vain 
longings for a dainty girlish room "in 
cream and pale blue" like the Journal 
girls have. 

I saw clearly chat the only eifect I 
could produce would be one of wild 
picturesqueness, an effect that would 
cause visitors to bulge their eyes and 
hold onto their chairs for dear life. 

There wass a red brick chimney 
reaching from ceiling to floor and en- 
tirely without ornament. I felt my 
heart sink as I gazed at it, and yet, I 
was glad to find one oasis in all that 
desert of wheat, glad there was one 
spot where grain wouldn't grow. 

Oh, if only my ancestors had handed 
down to me their old oaken chests of 
silken fabrics and brocaded gowns — 
then how gracefully I could drape 
that chimney, after the manner of our 
day! 



A ROLLING STONE 77 

But in our family there is only one 
chest, only one, and strange to say, 
I have never yet lifted its cover. 
There are rumors regarding its con- 
tents, rumors of a pair of old blue 
overalls, of a jumper and one cow- 
hide boot, and somehow, although it's 
in plain view in the garret at home, 
yet I've never cared to open it. Of 
course I put no faith in those old ru- 
mors, for we all know that it contains 
a beautiful white brocaded gown and 
a dainty pair of white slippers ! 

Thinking of these things set me to 
dreaming that day. and for half an 
hour I stood with a far away look in 
my eyes. But what a shock it is, 
after one has been wandering in 
Dreamland in the neighborhood of old 
oak chests, to suddenly run smack up 
against a red brick chimney ! 

I felt that something must be done 
at once. But what? 

Blessed be memory! What a joy it 
was to remember that down in the 
bottom of my trunk was an old tin 



78 MOSSES FROM 

box filled full to the cover with pic- 
tures that I had devastated magazines 
galore in quest of. These were 
"Stars" and "Leading Women" and 
women who weren't so leading — no 
matter — just so they were pictures. I 
hadn't seen fit to give them a place in 
the sacred pages of my scrap book, 
for that was to be handed down 
through the ages. But at last I had 
a place for them. I mounted a chair 
with glee and a bottle of glue and 
pasted them over that chimney : hit 
or miss, sink or swim, catch on where 
you can ! 

When it was finished and I stood 
looking up at it my brain turned a 
summer-set off into space. "Too 
much wine," I muttered, for one of 
the Stars stood on her head and 
waved her slippered feet on high, 
while a ''Leading Woman with Jones" 
lay on her nose and a maid with flow- 
ing locks hung on by one toe. Oh, it 
was pitiful! And yet, these pictures 
were serving the same purpose the 



A ROLLING STONE 79 

originals do ; help to cover the red 
bricks of reality with the glamour of 
romance. I knew they never would 
waken me with a shock from my 
dreams, and so I said "it was good," 
and I forsook not the work of my 
hands. 

If I were describing the dresser in 
this room to a girl chum back east, 
I should say it was of white teak- 
wood, most beautifully carved, but 
as it's you I'm talking to, why, I'll 
tell you truly that this dresser is un- 
doubtedly composed of equal parts of 
dry-goods boxes and white paint. I 
cracked the glass trying to insert pic- 
tures round its rim like The Journal 
girls do, so I had to tie up a bouquet 
of last year's leaves and berries and 
allow it to trail gracefully down the 
spinal column of the crack. Together 
with the pictures and the bouquet 
there isn't much room left for me, 
but everything goes for art's sake. 
Sometimes I almost fall into hysterics 
trying to see something besides my 



80 MOSSES FROM 

left ear and the sou'west corner of my 
chin, yet, I never, never remove those 
decorations. 

The bed is of like material to the- 
dresser, but honestly, I don't care 
what it's made of, just so it isn't a 
parlor sofa nor a berth in a state-room. 

By my chair stands a little bamboo 
table, and thereby hangs a tail. This 
tail is just one of my neck ribbons- 
that I have cast away in a moment of 
frenzy. I cannot say, for certain, 
what else is on that table for I don't 
know. But I have my suspicions ! I 
have my suspicions that somewhere 
below the surface my pocket-book lies- 
bleeding, and from keen observation 
and patient research I believe the up- 
per stratum to be composed of — books, 
honey, ink, loaf of bread, flowers,, 
catalogues, and a large dictionary on 
which a giant chocolate pot wobbles 
about in reckless glee, seemingly ob- 
livious of all danger. By its side a 
little souvenir cup hangs on for dear 
life. 



A ROLLING STONE 81 

Most visitors look longest at the 
table, though some of them never 
turn their eyes from the actress col- 
umn. One old lady, pointing to the 
chimney, asked me if I did it. I told 
her yes, and she then advised me to 
go out into society more, she said 
anybody would get morbid living so 
much in rooms. 

She looked wildly around at the 

wheat fields and the chimney, and the 

bamboo table; she wrung my hand 

with tears in her eyes and then left 

me, feeling for all the world like poor 

Ruth of old, 

''When, sick for home, she stood in 
tears amid the alien corn." 

(Only mine was alien wheat.) 
I'm thankful there are windows in 
my room, big enough to cover a big 
piece of the sky, for the sky, whether 
in gray or drab or in "cream and 
pale blue" is always pretty and in 
good taste. 

For the past month the letters from 
my relatives have begun and ended 



82 MOSSES FROM 

with this despairing cry: "Tell us 
more about yourself — more, more!" 

Even my vast and awful egotism 
fails to supply their demand and 
there's not enough about me to go 
half way around. 

Sometimes I have to make up things 
in self defense. Then again I'm 
forced to go off on a long trip, just so 
I will have "more about myself" to 
write to my ravenous kin-folks. That 
is why I went on the excursion to 
Victoria, B. C. It wasn't to celebrate 
the Queen's birthday that I went, for 
though I like her ever so much, still, 
you all know how wrapped up I am in 
the Star Spangled Banner ! I didn't 
go for pleasure either, as most of the 
poor deluded mortals did, but purely 
and simply for experience. I hoped 
the boat would almost sink, or that 
accidentally I'd fall overboard and 
almost drown. I wanted to be sea 
sick. Which want was speedily grat- 
ified and I had all the sea sickness I 
could hold. Once I had more. 



A ROLLING STONE 83 

I had thought what a lovely oppor- 
tunity I should have for studying 
human nature, and how I'd sit on 
deck and watch the waves and feel 
poetical and sweet, and then, next 
day, what beautiful letters would be 
homew^ard bound ! How I would de- 
light the souls of my kin with thrill- 
ing adventures and poetic flights ! 
But it was not to be so. I just crept 
away into my state-room the instant 
we struck the ocean swell, and I lay 
huddled up in a corner of my berth, 
saying, "Oh, dear! Oh, dear!" I said 
this about twenty times or more, for 
sea-sickness isn't conducive to origi- 
nality, and 1 don't believe the wicked- 
est sinner living could have gotten up 
spunk enough to swear. I turned my 
pillow over and sobbed on a cold spot ; 
then I had to sit up to let it dry. 
Out on deck I could hear the minstrel 
band playing "Nellie Gray," and the 
lump in my throat grew bigger and 
bigger, till by and by — I fed the 
fishes. 



84 MOSSES FROM 

When I stood again on my own 
home shore I felt like hugging the 
first thing I saw, but I didn't, be- 
cause it was a telegraph pole. In my 
room I stood still and feasted my 
eyes on the old familiar things, and 
there was no bitterness in my heart 
that day as I gazed at the fields of 
wheat — I was so madly thankful to 
think that paper wasn't covered with 
millions of little steam-boats. (It 
might have been, you know) That 
night I prayed for the fishes and the 
crocodiles and the poor sailor boys 
and everything else that is on the sea 
or beneath the sea or anywhere near 
the sea. 

Of course next day I was sick — not 
sick like I used to be when mother 
tucked the bed clothes in and shook 
the pillows for me and all I had to do 
was lie and watch the fire through 
half closed eyes ; when there was 
lovely tea in a sweet, blue cup and 
toast on a dainty plate ; and when I 
had a dear long legged brother to run 



A ROLLING STONE 85 

those same legs off bringing books to 
me from the city library; while the 
neighbors came in with jelly and jam 
and if, sometimes, they talked me 
into a fever — no matter, it showed 
they cared for me. There was a dear 
old doctor, too, whose words were 
law and gospel, and if he said castor- 
oil then castor-oil went. 

Noio, 1 abominate doctors, both 
male and female. They come in and 
etrut 'round the room and puff and 
talk and gag you with a thermometer 
and then they say in a loud, hilarious 
Toice, that "what you need, young 
lady, is cheering up." 

You lie still with every nerve on 
edge and a hatred in your heart for 
that man which would no doubt sur- 
prise him if he knew of it — but he 
don't — he's too busy "cheering you 
up." 

Someone just knocked: it was a 
girl selling volumes on '*Our Late 
War with Spain." 

I groaned, but not out loud, for 



86 MOSSES FROM 

there was something in the wistful 
expression of her eyes that went 
straight through my heart. I told 
her gently that I didn't care for war- 
books, but when I saw the light die 
out of her eyes, why, I changed my 
mind and ordered one. The light 
came back to her face in a jiffy and 
she said so hopefully that that made 
the third order she'd taken since 
morning. I wanted to cry — it wasn't 
pity, but I just couldn't help thinking 
how I'd feel if I was in her shoes. I 
may have overdone my sympathy, 
and yet, when I remember that little 
thin face and those eyes that could 
grow hopeful because, forsooth, their 
owner had taken three whole orders 
in one long day — when I remember 
this, I don't think I've wasted any of 
my precious, good-for-nothing sym- 
pathy. 

But perhaps she has pleasures that 
are only memories to you and me^ 
perhaps to-night when she trudges 
home there'll be a mother waiting for 



A ROLLING STONE 87 

her and. they'll sit in the fire-light 
and plan and dream dreams for the 
future. Oh, if I thought she had a 
mother I'd be sorry I didn't buy 'two 
books. 'Though I really couldn't 
afford it. I struggle so hard to save 
something! Last week I saved fifty 
cents out of my daily food fund and 
by Saturday noon I was so hungry I 
had to go do\vn town and order a reg- 
ular Sarah T. Rohrer dinner, whole 
wheat bread and all. That cost me 
thirty-five cents, and the remainder I 
blowed in for chocolate drops. 

Life is all a struggle, say what you 
will. If strife and wrestling with 
one's self and everybody else devel- 
opes character then mine must be a 
whopper; and if broken resolutions 
do pave the way to Chicago then my 
pavement must be nearly done. 

Every night I make tremendous 
programmes for the following day, in 
which every minute is accounted for, 
every hour has its work. On the mor- 
row, to a casual observer, it would 



88 MOSSES FROM 

seem as if I were straining every 
nerve to do as exactly the opposite 
thing as possible. 

I bite off so much more than I can 
chew that it keeps me busy all day 
long, spitting it out again. 

When one has a cold and a head 
big as a pumpkin and eyes that shed 
briny drops without any provocation 
whatever, and when this one is try- 
ing to compose sentences and write 
them down between sneezes, with 
what agony of soul does this afflicted 
being hear foot-steps approaching and 
then a loud knock on the door ! 

Reader, often and often I am such 
a tortured one. I hear a knock; I 
grab myself by the arm and by main 
force drag my body to the door; I 
open it and grin at the person stand- 
ing there. This person smiles back 
with a sunshiny radiance in her face 
that is fairly blinding. She says she 
came to call — that she'd just been 
trying all week long to come for she 
knew how dreadfully lonely I must be 



A ROLLING STONE 89 

(I'm still grinning) . She next remarks 
that she sees I've been writing a let- 
ter, and adds that if I'm anything 
like her I'm glad enough to be inter- 
rupted. 

My heart cries out that I'm not like 
her, never was and never want to be, 
but my heart can't cry above a whis- 
per, so the caller doesn't hear. She 
smiles and chats and gossips and has 
a lovely time all by herself, while I 
grin on. I know now, why skeletons 
grin so perpetually. They hate to 
hurt peoples' feelings and so they 
pretend they're having a high old 
time. Well, they have my sympathy 
and pretty soon I'll join their joyous 
band if callers don't stop coming 
when I've got a cold. Of course it 
depends a great deal on who the caller 
is. Now, if you, dear reader, should 
ever come, I'd be tickled to death. 
Only whatever you do, don't say you 
s'pose I'm dreadfully lonesome. I 
tell you I'm never really lonesome ex- 
cepting on such great occasions as the 



90 MOSSES .FROM 

Fourth o' July when I'm down town 
watching the parade, or else on circus 
day or, well, last Sunday I was lonely 
as I sat in a crowded street car that 
was carrying home from church a bur- 
den of noble ladies, who shook their 
trailing gowns and rustled their pur- 
ple and fine linen and spread them- 
selves over more seat than I could ever 
occupy lying at full length. There 
was one girl so pretty ! But somehow 
the more I looked at her the lone- 
somer I grew, and when her mamma 
gazed over my head with a pale con- 
traction of her aristocratic mouth, 
why, then^ if you'd have mentioned 
my lonely state I'd have wept on your 
neck and begged you to stop the car 
and take me away. I don't resent 
sympathy when I really need it but 
it's just when I'm happy and contented 
that I hate being pitied — that's all. 



I do wish the wrong people wouldn't 
be good to me. I mean that I wish 
folks who are wicked sinners wouldn't 



A ROLLING STONE 91 

bring me in a nice plate of fresh rolls 
for my supper. 

There's a woman in this building 
does that and those rolls are good. 
Every time before eating them I re- 
solve never to accept another thing 
from her, but after I've devoured two 
or three of them, I somehow can't help 
feeling that there must be some good 
in her after all, and perhaps it's my 
mission in life to bring it out. 

Her sins are not so many but a few. 
Firstly, she was heard to , laugh three 
months after her husband's death. 
Secondly, she has a sweet, winning 
smile which (Thirdly) caused a young 
man to fall deeply in love with her. 
And this young man (Fourthly) had 
been keeping company with the 
daughter of the gen'leman who owns 
this building, and now this daughter 
(Fifthly) is growing very thin so that 
she only weighs one hundred and 
eighty pounds. Those are the rea- 
sons why (Sixthly) I should avoid 
said woman and said rolls. 



92 MOSSES FROM 

A little girl coming home from 
school has set me to thinking of the 
days of yore and the girl I've left be- 
hind me. 

I have never spoken of her much 
for she was just a mere school girl, 
unknown to the world, and yet, she 
bore my name and I loved her very 
dearly for many years. I hated to 
give her up and so I kept her dresses 
above her shoe-tops and her hair done 
in a pig tail long, long after the 
younger fry were flaunting their 
young ladies' gowns and wearing their 
locks in a Psyche. I hung on to her 
for dear life but Grim Old Time hung 
harder and so she passed away with 
my school days. 

By schooldays I mean all those 
days that lived and had their being 
before the college came to town. Oh, 
that college, that busy, blustering in- 
stitution with its stern-eyed Profs., 
who marched in army-like array 
through the sacred halls ; who banged 
the silent doors, shattered the Lares 



A ROLLING STONE 93 

and Penates and seemingly crushed 
out all the traditionary sentiment 
that clung to the old Academy. 

These Profs, never knew your name 
nor who you were. They called you 
Miss Green and Miss Brown and Miss 
Jones from morning till night and 
were forever mistaking you for some- 
one you hated like poison. Our little 
customs and individualities were 
trampled on as rudely as if we were 
in the grasp of the old Norman Con- 
querors. They placed wall-eyed 
preps, in the time worn seats that 
were ours in the days when teachers 
were our best friends and knew us 
almost as well as our mothers did, and 
when our seat-mates were dearer than 
relations. How the whole school 
would loar if you said a funny thing, 
or if, on a Friday, you forgot your 
piece, then the girls would all gather 
around you and tell you not to mind, 
and they'd enumerate the many, 
many times they'd "broke down and 
never cared a single bit." 



94 MOSSES FROM 

The love I bore for my studies was 
a peculiar sort of love. I never dem- 
onstrated it by study or high rank in 
class or in examination. Oh, no! 
Many a girl with the odor of the high 
school still clinging to her frock, 
whose lessons were mere drudgery, 
stood fathoms above me. But I didn't 
mind. I always had a knack of going 
my own sweet way. Just the sight 
of the covers of my old Caesar would 
bring a smile to my face and my Lit- 
erature books would set me off at 
Dreamland. They were always so 
full of suggestions, and for me, their 
greatest charm lay in the reading be- 
tween the lines. 

(There was one book whose covers 
I didn't care much for. I generally 
kept it completely out of sight for one 
sniff of that Algebra would give me 
the jim-jams for a month.) 

But over the grave of the Old Acad- 
emy the New College grew and waxed 
strong. It carried on its traffic, man- 
ufactured graduates and sold its 
w^ares to the admiring natives. 



A ROLLING STONE 95 

But when I came to leave it after a 
time, I was a very surprised little girl 
to find how much I loved it; it was 
with great wonder that I felt a mighty- 
pain at my heart as I realized, too 
late, what a jolly, dear old place it 
was after all. There was something 
in the warm-hearted grasp of its 
hand and the motherly smile it shed 
on me at parting that reminded me, 
strangely enough, of the dear old 
Academy, and so I forgave it then 
and there. 

There's nobody I love to have come 
so well as the onion lady. She cheers 
my stomach as well as my heart. 

She was in a little while ago. She 
gave me one look and then she said: 
*'Why, child alive, you're looking 
dreadfully peaked. Are you sure 
you eat the right kind of food?" 

"The right kind!" I sobbed, "why, 
any kind would taste just beautiful 
and make me strong and well." And 
a, big tear fell off my chin and I 
moaned piteously as I toM her how I 



96 MOSSES FROM 

hadn't had anything since morning 
but a teaspoonful of Hood's Sarsapar- 
illa. 

She groaned, and taking me by the 
arm led me into her cozy rooms. 

In half an hour I was sitting oppo- 
site her at the daintiest of tables. It 
might have been because she asked 
the blessing, or else the dear way she 
had of waiting on me, or the little blue 
cups of tea, or maybe just because I 
was so hungry — but anyhow it was 
the loveliest meal I've had since long 
'fore you were born. 

She told me all about her daughter 
whose picture hangs over the mantle. 
A sweet, innocent, girlish face smil- 
ing as only eighteen can smile. 

I saw the cheery light die out of 
My Lady's eyes and a quiver stir her 
mouth as she looked at it, for her 
daughter is not dead but married, and 
she is married to the "wrong one." 
Poor little girl, I could have told her 
long ago that whoever she married 
he'd be the wrong one, because all the 



A ROLLING STONE 97 

right ones have been dead these many- 
thousand years. 

"Not dead, but sleeping," say you? 

"Well, if that is the case, for mercy 
sakes walk softly, shut the door gen- 
tly and don't wake them up, for if you 
wake one of them up out of a snooze 
he'll be uglier than seven bears for a 
week. 

Someday he'll wake up of his own 
accord. 

Someday 

"When the Sun is cold 
And the Stars are old, 
And the leaves of the judgment-book 
unfold." 

Then he'll sit up in bed with a start 
and he'll think somebody has run a 
hot pin through him. Not that any- 
body really will, but it'll just be his 
own conscience pricking him. But I 
can't talk on such a theme any longer 
— no use trying — I haven't the pa- 
tience. My fingers just itch to get 
hold of a jolly nice long hat-pin. I 
could wield it with glee long, long in 



98 MOSSES FROM 

advance of that day when the judg- 
ment-book unfolds. Yea, Young Man, 
•even noiv! 

Though I'm seldom lonely I'll own 
up that there are days in my existence 
I'd just as soon skip. But maybe 
you've heard before that life isn't a 
story book whose leaves can be turned 
over a dozen in a bunch, whose stupid 
parts may be skipped at will and only 
the interesting portions read? Life is 
another kind of a book. Every mor- 
tal page of it must be waded through. 
We spell out the minutes and hesitate 
and stammer over the long, long 
hours, wishing as fiercely for the end 
as if we were reading a chapter in 
old Webster. 

On such days, the instant I open 
my eyes in the morning, I'm sorry, 
and I continue in this sorrow through 
the whole day. 

After breakfast I take a spin on my 
wheel, but I don't spin long for just 
as I'm fairly under headway, nature 
waveth her magic wand and the de- 



A ROLLING STONE 99 

mons of the wind are let loose on my 
track. My vail floats away on the 
wings of the morning and my sailor 
rests lovingly on my left ear, while 
all the wealth of my tan colored 
tresses mingles with my eye-winkers. 
I finally give one heart rending wob- 
ble and there's a wreckage on corner 
of Pike and 2nd, or on James and 1st, 
or any other of the main traveled 
streets of the city. I scramble up 
wildly for fear of being lugged off in 
the patrol. I don't ride any more 
that day but I go home and write a 
letter as follows: 

At Home, 
May 30, '99. 

Dearest and ownliest friend : — 

1 just now received 
your loving letter. (Reader, I received 
that letter about two weeks ago.) I was 
so glad to get it! I do hope your finger 
wasn't cut very bad. Did you put a rag 
on it? If you didn't you must do it at 
once. (That finger was cut about three 
weeks previous to the writing of this 
letter.) 

I went for a bike ride this morning — 
had a lovely time. (Reader you have 
already heard of that ride.) 

Oh, I wish you were here with me ! 



100 MOSSES FBOM 

(no, I don't quite, because she talks a 
mile a second and eats everything!) 

How is your mama and your papa and 
your little sister and your auntie and 
your grandmother? Is your cousin 
better now! I do hope so. (She hasn't 
got any cousin at all now — he's been 
dead a long, long while.) 

Be sure and give your mama and 
your papa and your little sister my love, 
and your grandmother and auntie too — 
also your cousin. 

I have some new tan shoes. They are 
just lovely and so easy on my feet! 
(Reader, those shoes have almost pinch- 
ed my toes to a jelly.) 

Well I must close as the postman will 
soon be here to garher up the letters. 
(The postman doesn't come for three 
hours yet.) 

Give my love to all, keeping a large 
chunk for yourself. As ever your old 
friend and school-mate, Abbie. 

This finished I feel that I ought to 
write to my brothers and sisters and 
other relations, but oh, I love them 
too much to send down upon them 
such an epistle as the above. 

Then one of the girls I know calls, 
and my heart thrills with hope. But 
no, she can't stay! Mama just sent 
her up to ask me if I had any nice 
book to read. 



A ROLLING STONE 101 

I feel like recommending Spurgeon's 
Sermons to her but I refrain, and 
instead I resurrect some old dog-eared 
novel and give it to her with a mut- 
tered blessing. 

When blessed evening comes at last 
I lower the shades, freshen the fire 
and draw the little bamboo table close 
to the old sofa where I cuddle up in 
a heap, with a dozen books at my 
side and a cup of chocolate delicately- 
balancing itself on the highest point 
of the bamboo table. I sip this choc- 
olate from time to time. I open first 
one book and then another, but they 
weary me. 'Til at the bottom of 
the pile I find an old worn book my 
mother used to like, and I open it at 
a certain chapter about being "weary 
with my groaning all the day long." 
It just suits me and it's such a comfort 
to know that a long time ago there 
was a king named David who felt like 
"Weary Willie" too, sometimes. 

I read Psalm after Psalm and they 
all fit my ease precisely. I tell you 



102 MOSSES FROM 

that old song book David wrote so 
long ago comes in pretty good some- 
times. 

When I have bilious spells brought 
on by too rich reading ; when my 
mouth tastes of current periodicals 
and measles, and my stomach craves 
startling high spiced foods in the 
form of Modern Novels, then it is 
that I like Saul can be soothed by 
nothing but one of David's songs. 

Poor old Saul ! I expect he used to 
sit up nights reading about "Our 
Late War" till he got the jim jams in 
both legs. 

May, being the month of apple blos- 
soms and also the month of my birth, I 
have a special love for her. But she has 
disappointed me this year. She has 
caused the rain to fall on the just and 
the unjust alike till the Indians have 
prophesied a cold and rainy summer 
and the ravens have croaked and the 
vsrise men wagged their heads. 

However, just at last she has proved 



A ROLLING STONE 103 

herself human ; after giving us thirty 
days of rain and wind, lo ! on the 
thirty-first day of her reign she 
has repented her — not in sack-cloth 
and ashp.s, but in sunshine and blue 
sky. She couldn't bear to slip into 
the eternity of the past with all the 
burden of those rainy days upon her 
soul; couldn't bear to leave behind 
her not one sunshiny day for us to> 
remember her by, and so, with a 
shrewd insight into the human heart 
she chose the very last day for her 
face to shine in. Just as some of our 
friends who have treated us shabby 
for a month, turn 'round and are 
just melting good for about two hours^ 
before they set sail for Honolulu. 
They leave some parting gift in our 
hand and kiss us and cry on us and 
behold, how we love them ! Their 
kindly smile and the little gift which 
maybe cost two or three dollars, has- 
wiped out the whole bitter past. We- 
remember no more the night when 
they rolled up in the bed clothes and. 



104 MOSSES FROM 

wouldn't budge an inch. Forgotten 
is that hour of agony when we hung 
suspended in the space between the 
bed and floor, while our friends lay- 
peacefully snoozing in our place — and 
then, when the final crash came and 
our head was pillowed on the floor 
matting we remember no longer how 
these same friends sat up in bed and 
cried out saying : 

"Well, I never! If you haven't 
actually tumbled out of bed!" 

Yes, we've forgo tton all this and 
we hope our friends will have a lovely 
time in Honolulu — and stay a long, 
long time. 

Really and truly I do think that 
rent in this man's town is enormous. 
The sum of money that passes every 
month in advance, into the clutches 
of the gen'leman who owns (Oh, you 
know the rest!) is dreadful to relate. 
I shan't tell how much my rent is, for 
some of my friends, I know, would be 
shocked at my dire extravagance while 



A ROLLING STONE 105 

others who are millionaires, semi- 
millioniares and quarti-millionaires, 
would sniff their nostrils in disdain at 
such a mere nothing. But I guess if 
their little tin bank was filled with 
just mere nothings, they'd sniff out 
the other side of their nose. If I were 
a millionaire I know what I'd do. 
After five or six years I'd die off and 
leave everything to some nice young 
lady who was struggling to keep a 
roof over her. 

I'm afraid if you were here you'd 
tell me I ought to give up these rooms 
and 'go in search of cheaper ones. 
But don't, donH do it; don't set the 
poor old stone to rolling again so 
soon ! Do you think that I could bear 
to leave this chimney, this little bam- 
boo table, the dresser of teak-wood 
and the real bed that is not a sofa ! 
Do you think I could leave all this 
and go wandering about the highways 
and hedges in search of a room that 
at best, would be but one dollar 
cheaper? No, rather will I save on miy 



106 MOSSES FROM 

butcher- bill, which will be quite easy 
as I don't eat meat. I'm what you'd 
call a vegetarian, that is, I would be, 
only I don't eat vegetables either; I 
just take Hood's Sarsaparilla three 
times a day for that weary Willie feel- 
ing in my head. 

I'm getting a little thin, and that 
reminds me: I met the minister's- 
wife the other day — who is not getting 
thin. I almost knew she',d say some- 
thing to make me hate her again, and 
sure enough ! She gazed at me a mo- 
ment with her peculiar eyes and then 
remarked that it seemed to her I was 
looking terribly puny. That word! 
The very same one that hung like a 
pail over my happy childhood, dark- 
ening and embittering it. 

You see, when I was a little girl 
about seven years old, I lived in the 
country. And there was an old doc- 
tor who went about from house to 
house, selling catnip tea and balsam. 
One night, just at supper, he honored 
us with a visit. He was sitting oppo- 



A ROLLING STOJSTE 107 

site me at table, when suddenly he 
turned to my mother, and pointing 
vividly at me in the presence of all 
my relations, he said in a loud voice : 
"Mark my words, Madam, that child 
is puny, terribly puny." 

I gave him one look of intense ha- 
tred. I saw my brothers smile with 
glee, and well did I know that omen 
of ill ! 

After that, whenever I wanted to 
go hunting or skating or play "rob- 
ber" or ride old Bill or slide on the 
new sled or play in the loft, — no mat- 
ter what — those boys would gurgle 
with iiendish delight and say with 
mock sorrow : 

"Nope sis, we're awful sorry we 
can't take you, but you're puny, you 
know, terribly puny." 

When I had measles and whooping 
cough they would gather about my 
bed and ask in gentle tones if I wasn't 
feeling pretty puny to-day. 

In time I developed a fierce thick 
frown. I cried out for folks to "let 



108 MOSSES FROM 

me be" and for "them boys not to 
talk to me." I learned to go about 
with an independent air, and every 
one knew, from the look in my eye, 
that 'twas "none o' their business." 
I would sit for hours on an old log 
over the creek, swinging my legs and 
smiling an uncanny smile as I 
dreamed how, some fine morning, I'd 
run away to a far off land and teach 
school till I had money enough to buy 
a gold watch set with rubies and a 
pink silk dress like the girl in the 
calendar had. And then, by and by, 
when I was eighteen and all the fam- 
ily had gathered together in the old 
farm house to mourn my loss; when 
all the aunts and uncles who had ever 
patronized me and all the cousins who 
had broken my dolls, came from afar 
to weep with one another — then in all 
my magnificence I would open the 
door and step in upon them, and the 
prodigal family would fall on my neck 
and weep and ask my forgiveness 
and then go and kill the fatted tur- 



A ROLLING STONE 109 

key. (No fatted calf in mine, if you 
please.) 

During those days, and ever since, 
my friends have wagged their heads 
and muttered how they feared I never 
should care for anybody. Unless, as 
my Cousin Jane once whispered in 
my ear, unless he was the "right one" 
— some one, you understand, who 
would be fearfully, madly, wildly 
homely, with lines of sorrow about 
his mouth and — smart, he must be 
smart, she said. Why Jane should 
think I have a predilection for ugli- 
ness and smartness is more than I can 
surmise, for you yourselves know how 
I love pretty things, and as for smart- 
ness, why, there's nobody who cares 
less for it. Nobody who enjoys com- 
mon ordinary folks more than I do^ 
folks who never have even heard of 
Darwin's theory and don't know 
Browning from a hole in the ground. 
Who will innocently ask me how to 
spell "it" or "but," and if I don't ex- 
actly know they like me all the better 



110 MOSSES FROM 

for it and don't act as if I'd committed 
murder in the first degree. Some- 
times they will look up from a book 
and enquire of me what "expectation" 
means. I look thoughtful a moment 
and then announce that "expecta- 
tion is when anybody expects some- 
thing every day for a month and then 
don't get it." This mayn't be just 
as Webster would put it but I don't 
care, it appeals to my people and they 
understand it. They know it's true 
from experience, and lots of times 
I've had my definitions bring tears to 
their eyes and they'd weep as they 
told me how often they had felt ex- 
actly that way. 

Of course one of Webster's defini- 
tions will bring tears to one's ej^es 
also, but they are tears of saltpeter 
and carbolic acid and are vastly dif- 
ferent from the crystal drops of ten- 
derness that flow from the human 
heart at hearing one of my definitions. 

If I ever do write a dictionary I'm 
going to write one that will make 



A ROLLING STONE 111 

men and women better for having 
read it — not better intellectually, but 
truer and kinder and nobler at heart. 
But I'd hate to have to define a bi- 
cycle track. The most I know about 
it is that I'm not caring anything 
about riding on one. I enjoyed it 
once away back in January when 
cycling was out of season and the 
track was out of repair. I don't know 
what prompted me to ride that day, 
for it had rained the night before and 
the track was decidedly soggy, while 
the air was full of a soft oozy mist. 
The track leads to a little lake some 
six or seven miles away — if I were 
only good at description, which we 
all know I'm not, I'd give you a vivid 
picture of it; but let it suffice to say 
that it is crooked and narrow and 
goes sidling 'round and 'round and 
over and above and through a collec- 
tion of hills ; there are dark and 
bloody gulches and terrible precipices, 
but withal there is bewilderingly 
beautiful scenery everywhere. My 



112 MOSSES FROM 

heart thrilled with delightful uncer- 
tainty as, ever and anon, I came upon 
a point where a jutty of the hill made 
a sudden curve in the path, and what 
was around that curve was as hidden as 
the future ; it might be a grizzly bear 
or a — man ! I went along at an easy 
gait, now catching sweet glimpses of 
the little lake far below, now peering 
up into mossy gulches, till suddenly 
I came upon a shady nook wherein 
was a small bench. It undoubtedly 
had been "built for two" but I found 
that one could occupy it very com- 
fortably without feeling lonely at all. 
My lunch too, I discovered, was about 
right for one — in fact, I didn't see 
how I could possibly have been hospit- 
able to two of us. 

Lunches are all right in their place 
but that place is not the human stom- 
ach, they leave one with such an un- 
healthy craving for drink, also with 
a lump in one's throat, composed of 
two boiled eggs, one pickle, one sand- 
wich and a piece of roll jelly cake. I 



A ROLLING STONE 113 

looked about for water; but even 
when I found it what did it avail me? 
There was no cup to go with it, not 
even an old rusty dipper with a hole in 
it! 

And I'm not one of those children 
of nature who can lie flat down and 
drink from a running stream. Not 
that I'm afraid of getting my dress 
muddy nor of doing anything ungen- 
tlemanly, but simply because just as 
a big cool draught goes careering 
down my throat I imagine there are 
other things likewise careering down 
it, such as big, cool snake eggs, large, 
wet spiders; and when, suddenly, a 
great damp green toad hops up on the 
opposite bank, on a level with my eye- 
brows, and waves his little toes at me 
— oh it's horrible ! 

So it was that I stood there help- 
less beside the running brooklet. The 
eggs were petrifying in my throat 
and I could locate the exact place 
where the pickles lay. Then my eyes 
espied the eggshells. I snatched 



114 MOSSES FROM 

thirstily at the half of one and took 
my station by the beautiful stream. I 
drank and drank and drank again, till 
the burden of my throat rolled away. 

I mounted my wheel once again, 
hut from there on the path grew 
more dangerous, the curves more 
numerous and sudden, while every 
rod or so a white sign-board hopped 
up by the track, saying loudly : "Ring 
your bell!" "Go slow!" "Keep to 
the right!" 

I am convinced that these sign- 
boards do more harm than good, for 
they caused my wheel to shy fearfully, 
and to whizz round the curves like 
blue lightning. And as for ringing 
the bell, there was no need of it, for 
I was monarch of all that beautiful 
path, and never a fellow biker did I 
meet the whole way. 

Foolish child that I was, I thought 
it would always be so, thought I could 
come there next June and find the 
same sweet quietude, thought I could 
ride along there at the same ambling 



A ROLLING STONE 115 

gate, sit on the old bench and eat my 
lunch and drink from the little stream 
just as I did that day in January. 
And it was with a feeling of joyful 
expectation that I sallied forth, bound 
for the track, one morning not far 
away. I don't remember much about 
that ride — I just have a confused rec- 
ollection of hundreds of people whiz- 
zing by one another as if pursued; 
peering into one another's faces with 
wild, eager eyes ; ringing their bells 
like mad; scorching round the curves 
with set faces and glaring eyes ! Few 
and short the words they said, few 
and short the thoughts they thunk ! 

Maybe the little lake was still there 
below, and the trees and the bench 
by the quiet stream, but 1 didn't see 
them. I saw nothing bub whirring 
wheels and pantings and puffings and 
ringing of bells ; felt nothing but a 
fierce desire to "go it" with the rest 
— go it till I died. 

I own up to it that one experiences 
a certain wild fascination such as a 



116 MOSSES FROM 

locomotive must feel as it goes ripping 
and snorting over the plains and the 
mountains. 

And to certain individuals I've" no 
doubt it's beneficial. To such as 
have feasted on sentiment till there's 
nothing left but bones; who have 
wrung their hands in rapture over the 
sunset, and cried their eyes red gaz- 
ing at the moon ; whose thoughts 
were bred in an incubator and whose 
feelings were purchased"ready made" 
— oh, I should think they would want 
to ride a million miles a minute to 
see if they couldn't get away from 
themselves. Let -th»m mount their 
wheels in hot haste and make for the 
track where all they'll need will be 
muscle and brawn and strength of 
limb — and a license on their wheel. 

But as for me, give me a smooth 
old country road, with maybe a rut 
here and there or maybe a little hill — 
who cares for things like these.? All 
is quiet there. Perhaps there'll be 
no lake, no beautiful scenery, but al- 



A ROLLING STONE 117 

most always there's a quiet stream or 
a shady pool with willows all around, 
and then — there is time, all the time 
in the world : time to \vatch a cloud 
drift by, or stop at a farm house and 
ask for a drink ; and plenty of time to 
think the thoughts that only come to 
one in such sweet, simple places as 
these. You amble along the old 
white road meeting nothing worse 
than a cow or lumber wagon, with a 
kind old face smiling down at you 
from the high spring seat. I'd love 
to follow the road on to the end, for 
I know they'd be good to me, the 
people who live by its highways and 
hedges. 

The cows might shake their moosey 
heads at me, but by the time they had 
fairly whetted their horns, I should be 
skimming over yonder hill. I might 
meet some poor Wandering Jew who, 
like myself, had found his best friend 
to be the old country road. But I 
shouldn't be afraid, for I know he'd 
recognize in me something akin to 



118 MOSSES FBOM 

himself, and he'd give me a dusty 
grin and pass on without so much as 
staying his weary feet to question my 
purpose or my purse. 

The trouble would be, when in my 
course I came upon some little ham- 
let the natives of which would gather 
together on the street corners and eye 
me suspiciously. 

"Why," they would ask, "why is 
this being who sitteth upon a bike, 
riding through space in this wise? It 
cannot be for pleasure, for the crea- 
ture is alone. Let us hasten up and 
question her." 

They would ask, did I ride for 
money ? 

And I would answer, no ! 

Did I ride for fame? 

Again, no! 

Did I ride for duty? 

No! 

Then what in Bryan's name was I 
riding for? 

And I should smile a sweet shy 
smile, touch the spur to my trusty 



A ROLLING STONE 11» 

"bike and leave them rubbing their 
eyes with their knubby fists. For 
why should I parley with them? If I 
told them my real reason they would 
only mock me and look down their 
Judas noses: if I said, "Fellow lab- 
orers and friends! I am riding 
through space in this manner,not for 
fame,not for money,not from a sense of 
duty but merely because I want to,' ^ 
they would either think me insane or 

else a Cuban spy. 

Oh, hum! Let's go home. For 

home is home even if it is just a dry 

goods box in an alley or a room in a 

block. 

"I suppose this seems like home to 

you," said a friend of mine one day. 

"I suppose it doesn't seem lonely or 

dreary or — or horrible to you?" 

And she gazed about while a shiver 

crept up her back — not that I saw it 

but it was in the room and the verjr 

air was charged with it. 

I told her I managed to exist here. 
But honestly now, didn't I think 



120 MOSSES FROM 

I'd be happier if I'd take up embroid- 
ery or sewing or something; hadn't I 
ever thought of learning millinery or 
anything? I s^iould be so much more 
contented, she thought, if I had 
something to take up my mind. 

To hear her talk anybody would 
think I had a face on me like Dante, 
with the light of Inferno in my eyes, 
and a lover lost in our late war, while 
my mind was a regular Sahara desert 
and my soul a Dakota plain. 

When she'd gone away I felt so un- 
happy, with my thoughts in a tangle 
and with a miserable fear at my heart 
that maybe, after all, I was on the 
wrong side of the river, and that the 
folks on the other bank were having 
the best time. But just as the tears 
were filling my eyes a big burst of 
sun came through my window, filling 
my lap full of sunshine, while a stray 
verse came singing into my heart and 
I fell to humming in undertone : 

"There's a joy in mere existence 
That the raptured soul consumes." 



A ROLLING STONE 121 

And then I took a deep breath of 
sunshine, laughed drowsily, curled up 
on the sofa and fell asleep. 

There's one thing I've never been 
-and that's a school teacher. I have 
always humored myself in thinking 
that someday I'd be one, someday 
when I got far enough along in my 
'rithmetic. 

But honestly, I believe if it came to 
a pinch and I had to choose between 
that and going as missionary to the 
Cannibal Islands, I'd take the mis- 
sionary every time. 

It just makes my tooth jump to think 
of having some little curly-headed 
infant toddle up to my desk and ask 
me through its little nose where the 
Philippines were. "Pa said fer me to 
ask you.'"' 

And just to think of some tall, fair 
haired Maid of Athens in a pink cal- 
ico apron, stalking up to me and en- 
treating me to show her how to work 
an example in partial payments, and 
then to have her stand and look over 



122 MOSSES FROM 

my shoulder through the whole busi- 



ness ! 

Every time 1 beheld a little grimy 
hand raised on high I'd faint dead 
away for I'd be sure they were going^ 
to ask some abominable question their 
Pa had set them up to. 

I suppose that every woman at some 
time of her life, ought to don a white 
apron and tie on her sunbonnet and. 
trudge through the fields and over the 
hill to the little old school house down 
in the hollow. 

I had a teacher once, and if I 
thought I'd ever be loved by any mor- 
sel of human flesh as that teacher was 
loved by me, why I'd furbish up my 
arithmetic and teach school for the 
rest of my days. 

I adored her ; her lovely brown eyes 
and the long braid of hair that hung; 
down her back. The day she picked 
me up and kissed me was a day to be 
remembered. 

I would plod through the snow in 
winter till I was worn out with trying 



A ROLLING STONE 123 

to walk in the footsteps of my long- 
legged brothers — footsteps, oh, how 
few and far between and how like 
giant post holes ! But it was worth 
while enduring all this just to have 
that dear teacher untie my hood and 
hold me on her lap for an hour. And 
if she ever winked knowingly over 
my head at my big brothers, I never 
saw her. 

Sometimes I stayed all night with 
her and once she showed me her beau- 
tiful dresses and another time she 
brought forth a little box full of 
"keepsakes," she called them. There 
was a penny and a heart candy; a 
button and a picture, a lock of hair 
and an old thimble, etc. I looked at 
them with awe ; they opened up a new 
vista of life to me, an undiscovered 
country. Keepsakes ! Why, 7 didn't 
have any, but you bet I would before 
another day was past. 

I went home. I found a button box 
and I cut off all the brass buttons from 
two pairs of pants. I swiped my 



124 MOSSES FROM 

mother's thimble and some pennies 
from the boys, and as for hair, I cut 
a lock off the head of every member 
of the family, from my oldest brother 
down to my little dog Gip. 

The next time the teacher stayed 
at our house for tea, with what pride 
did I show her my box! IS^obody 
smiled, nobody laughed. But she 
just said it was every bit as nice as 
hers, and held me on her lap the whole 
evening. And I know she did 'iiot 
wink at the boys either — now! 

You needn't say she w^as good to 
me just because of them either, for I 
know better, and I tell you 1 will not 
have this idol broken. 

Talk about worshiping idols ! Jim- 
miny Christmas! I'd like to see any- 
body get a chance to worship one. 
You no sooner get your nice little idol 
set up than somebody comes along 
with a hammer and smashes it to 
splinters and tells you it's no good 
anyhow, that its feet are of clay, and 
a whole lot more stuff. 



A EOLLING STONE 125 

Then you make yourself another 
one, taking pains with its feet to 
have them of shiny gold. Somebody 
comes again. Yes, its' feet are all 
right this time, but now its head is of 
pumpkin. So it goes, and oh dear, I 
do wish folks would let other folks be! 

Now I'll talk a little about keep- 
sakes. Little children gathered here 
to-day, never willfully seek to acquire 
keepsakes. In their own good time 
they'll come to you, thicker than 
measels and they'll stay a great dejxl 
longer. 

"Till death us do part," I say sadly 
when another keepsake makes its way 
into my little desk. Oftentimes I he- 
roically throw away with the rubbish 
some worthless trinket I'm tired of, 
but in half an hour's time I'm down 
searching for it in the ash barrel. 

They accumulate in boxes and 
drawers and always they seem to be 
saying to me, "Whither thou goest 
we will go, thy trunk shall be our 
trunk, thy boxes oitr boxes." 



126 MOSSES FROM 

The best way to do is to fill your 
pockets with them, tie a gunny sack 
full around your neck and another on 
your back, and then go down to the 
City Dock and jump off into the Bay. 

For me, I suppose the noblest thing 
to do before making the grand jump 
of a lifetime, would be to tie up 
these keepsakes into neat little bundles 
and send them away to my friends 
and relations. But would they ap- 
preciate them? Supposing I sent 
Jane a little old cracked cup I've had 
for years wouldn't she sniff with dis- 
dain and give it to little Anna Belle 
Lee for her play house ! And I know 
if I sent Mary that little souvenir 
spoon of mine with the battleship 
Maine, before it went busted, beauti- 
fully engraved on its bowl, I know 
she'd not only sniff with disdain but 
howl with disgust and say she'd seen 
the likes of them before and they were 
brass clear through! She should 
think I might have sent her something 
that at least made a pretense of being 



A ROLLING STONE 127 

-gold. That dear little brass spoon ! 
how it helps to ladle up the past to 
me! And the little cracked cup is 
full to the brim of memories of the 
giver — even the crack tells a story and 
brings back other days a hundred 
times clearer than any old yellow page 
in a diary could do. 

I abominate diaries! The harder 
you try to make them bright and in- 
teresting the stupider and affecteder 
and sentimentaller they get till finally 
they are just about as exciting as a 
tub of rain water seasoned with angle 
worms. You are supposed to be writ- 
ing a Diary for no other eye than your 
•own, but the first thing you know you 
are writing down a whole chapter of 
sentimental trash and dreaming how 
Neddie or Johnny or Jimmie will run 
across it lying on the bench under- 
neath the apple trees and how he'll 
read therein that you are eating up 
your heart by the pound all for the 
love of him, and then how he'll come 
tearing up the walk on his little chubby 



128 MOSSES FROM 

legs and fall at your feet crying out 
that it might have been so diiferent, oh 
so different, if he'd only have known 
sooner! And he weeps on his red ban- 
dana and you v^^eep on your gingham 
apron and then he kisses your left ear 
madly, passionately, and rushes away 
to inform Susie Green that he loves an- 
other and for her to give him back his. 
ring quick. 

You can't be true to yourself and. 
write a Diary at the same time. 

Being true to one's self reminds me 
of a little incident fraught with grief 
and pain. 

The classroom was very still. Pro- 
fessor and students were gathered- 
about a long table laden with departed 
beasts, for lo, it was a Physiology- 
class! Reader, I was there all but 
my heart and my eyes ; they were out- 
picking buttercups in the sweet, clean 
meadows. 

The group about the table were in- 
tent upon something the little plump* 
professor held in his hand. I learned 



A ROLLING STONE 129 

afterwards that it was the eye of a 
cow. This cow never again would 
roam the green pastures and switch 
her brindle tail in the sunshine, for 
her weary bones had been whitening 
long upon some grassy slope or shady 
hollow, and only her eye was left to 
tell the tale. I like cows' eyes — in 
their place — in a cow's head: provided 
that same cow is living and breathing 
and chewing her cud and looking pen- 
sively at me with her soft brown orbs 
— then I think cows' eyes are pretty, 
but in death — I draw the line. 
I drew the line that day. As 
in a dream I realized th'kt they 
were searching for something on that 
eyeball. The professor said a little 
black spot should invariably appear 
on the something or other of the 
something or other that belonged to 
the eye. 

At last they all found it, all save 
one ! 

''There were ninety and nine in the fold 

that day, 
But one was lost on the hills away," 



130 MOSSES FROM 

sounded mournfully in my mind ; and, 
oh reader, / was that lost one, for to 
:save my life I couldn't see that 
wretched little black spot. I gazed 
and gazed till the class grew impa- 
tient and the professor grew irritable. 
Well, even girls with green eyes and 
big ears have something of the actress 
in them. This quality had hitherto 
lain dormant in me but now there was 
need of it. I clasped my hands ; a 
look of excitement crept into my face 
and I cried out in an ecstatic voice : 
^'Oh, I see it, 1 see it! Isa't it a dear 
little spot?" I deceived the class en- 
tirely, but not so the wily Prof. My 
€yes had bulged a trifle too much and 
the note of ecstacy in my voice had 
been a trifle too loud for his quick ear 
to be deceived by it. He looked at me 
sadly and said: "Miss Abbie, what- 
ever you do, be true to yourself." 
Then I saw several hundred little 
black spots and I felt sorry, very, very 
sorry, for no matter how much I may 
fib to other folks I've always wanted 



A ROLLING STONE 131 

to be true to myself and do the square 
thing by it. 

But between you and me and my 
own heart lc?o think I was true to 
myself, for I saw that black spot as 
clearly in my mind's eye as if I had 
focused a dozen ordinary green eyes 
at it. 

Of course I shouldn't have called it 
a "dear" little spot, nor acted tick- 
led about it, — but goodness, I guess 
anybody would act tickled to see even 
a Mis-ouri cousin if 'twas in self-de- 
fence. 

Not long after we stood again in 
the little class room. It looked like 
Noah's Ark struck by lightning ten 
days before. 

On the table lay some half dozen 
cats who had passed quietly away 
some time ago. There were several 
dogs slain by an assassin. There were 
chickens, "absolutely fresh, "and little 
odds and ends in the shape of toads, 
mice, etc. Oh, the table was just cov- 
ered with and-so-forths. 



132 MOSSES FROM 

I sniffed with anguish and' two 
young ladies grew pale and wobbly,, 
which caused the little Prof, to re- 
mark angrily that as for him.he could 
relish his dinner in that same room as 
much as if he was in his own dining- 
room at home, (which wasn't saying 
much for the dining-room at home.) 

I looked at him. He had a kind, 
honest face with nothing hardened in 
its expression, nothing of depravity 
in his glance which could lead one to 
believe in the truth of his remark. I 
saw that just for his profession's sake 
he had wheedled himself into believing 
a wretched lie ; and when I had com- 
pared that direful room with his own 
cool, fresh dining room at home where 
the white curtains fluttered to and 
fro, and the china shone on the dainty 
table, while a sweet little wife poured 
out tea for him ; when T compared 
these two rooms I said in undertone : 
"Old man, whatever you do, be true 
to yourself." You notice I didn't say 
it out loud, for behold, examinations 



A KOLLING STONE 133 

were nigh at hand and their proximity 
makes a lot of difference in a body's 
manner of speaking to his Prof. 

Now I think of it, he was exceed- 
ingly merciful to me on that day of 
sorrow. He must have been thinking 
of other things when he examined my 
paper and marked it ''Passed." When 
he read about a horse's tail that was 
t-a-l-e, and when in answer to a ques- 
tion asking for the exact location of 
the heart he was informed by that 
same paper that the heart hasn't any 
special place of staying but that it 
beats on one side till it gets tired 
and then flops over to the other. 

No doubt his conscience pricked 
him for passing me, and yet he was 
being true to himself — to his best 
self you understand. Which doesn't 
care a picayune where a body's heart 
maybe just so it's good and true, and 
beats in sympathy with some poor 
flunking student. 

But I've no doubt that will be 
among the first sins he confesses on 



134 MOSSES FROM 

the Great Day. I wouldn't be a bit 
surprised But just as he's telling 
how sorry he is for it, wouldn't it be 
a joke if the ones who are running 
the thing then should tell him it was 
one of the very best things he ever 
did? 

There'll be lots of jokes that day I 
expect — lots of things going on that 
will make the angels hide behind their 
wings and smile. Wouldn't it be 
odd if while I'm confessing how I ate 
that wicked sinner's rolls, and telling 
how sorry I am I treated her nice and 
pleasant, if then they'd tell me that 
was one of my best deeds? 

And when I'm telling about the 
day I got lost and wandered about 
till I strayed into the slums — but per- 
haps I'd better tell the reader about 
it first. I got lost one day before I 
had thoroughly learned the lay of the 
city in which I dwelt, and as lost 
folks always do, I strayed into the 
very worst place. But I wasn't at all 
worried. I was too much interested. 



A ROLLING STOKE 135- 

I was remembering all I had ever read 
about Slums, 'specially Dickens' 
slums. I forgot all about being a 
young lady : ] forgot to hold up my 
skirt and to pick my way — I even for- 
got that I had on a beautiful new pair 
of shoes. 1 ambled along. On a. 
corner stood an old man. He was 
swearing — he didn't tell me why but 
I knew. 1 knew 'twas just because 
he was miserable and wicked and 
poverty stricken. How I wished E 
could smile as some girls can, theni 
maybe I could have cheered his- 
weary old soul and made him forget 
to swear for a moment. As it was, 
my mouth made a pitiful stagger at a 
smile which ended in a woebegone 
pucker and my eyes grew watery and 
I've no doubt the poor old fellow 
thought I too, was in trouble, for he- 
swore all the harder at the world pres- 
ent and the world to come and all the 
inhabitants thereof. I stumbled om 
till I almost fell over a little — baby ( ?) 
I don't know\ It might have been a. 



136 MOSSES FEOM 

baby if I could have gotten a glimpse 
of it. Anyhow it had a baby's eyes : 
pitiful, beseeching. I didn't try to 
smile for I was beyond even a meager 
grin. I longed to be a big strong 
man so I could put the little creature 
bodily into my coat pocket and carry 
it home to my wife and have her 
clean it all up and feed it and then — 
what then? Oh, surely there'd be 
room somewhere in this world for a 
sweet clean baby ! 

I stood there perfectly helpless. 
My hands weren't strong nor my heart 
wasn't strong, and then besides, mis- 
sionaries are born not made. 

Then by mere chance I staggered 
into the light of day and the bustle 
and noise of a civilized street. I held 
up my skirt from the dust in a hurry, 
and straightened my hat and looked 
with chagrin at the mire on my shoes. 
I reached my room feeling very much 
ashamed and I sent up a prayer for 
forgiveness then and -there. I prom- 
ised to cleanse my linen skirt from 



A ROLLING STONE 137 

mud and my new tan shoes from con- 
taminating clay. I wonder if the 
angels laughed in heaven and if,on the 
Day when we're all there — not in heav- 
en, I don't mean — I Avonder if they'll 
tell me that they don't deal in young la- 
dies and linen skirts and new tan shoes, 
and the only prayer they renj ember of 
hearing from me that day was the 
one I prayed unconsciously, a prayer 
without words that came straight from 
my heart as I passed the old man in 
the slums, and the little baby, having 
forgotten myself for just one little 
rtioment. 

I only wish 1 knew how to read a 
newspaper. One is delivered every 
evening at my domicile door but to save 
my life I can't get into it. Just as i'm 
beginning to be a little bit interested 
in some harmless advertisement sud- 
denly a great heavy line of brazen let- 
ters rises up before me and startles me 
so I can hardly make out its meaning. 
After gazing intently at it for half an 
hour I discover its purpose to be, 



138 MOSSES FROM 

'■''She shot her husband and then killed 
herself. Jealously the alleged mo- 
tive:' 

These heavy lines are called"head- 
ers" 1 think, and they make me feel 
as I do when a hot-tamalie fiend yells 
in my ear. 

Generally newspapers do not ac- 
quire pulpit methods, but they evi- 
dently have adopted the custom of 
ancient ecclesiastics who were wont to 
talk softly and g'^ntly in a low under- 
tone for about fifteen minutes, and 
then suddenly, without any warning 
whatever, begin roaring, stamping 
and waving their arms till anybody 
would think they were trying to shout 
down the walls of Jericho. 

"A man died in Philadelphia," last 
night's paper stated. I wondered 
why — not why the man died, but why 
the paper mentioned it, and since it 
did see fit to do so why it didn't like- 
wise mention that a man ate his 
breakfast in New York yesterday 
morning, or that the sun set in Lon- 



A ROLLING STONE 139 

don the other night, or any other 
likely fact. If Philadelphia wasn't 
so far away from here, or if this de- 
parted man had been a great general 
or an oil magnate or the owner of a 
brewery or even a mere poet, I could 
have understood better why his depar- 
ture should be recorded — but no, he 
was just a man named Jonas Brown 
who died suddenly at his home in 
Philadelphia. 

Maybe 'twas the idea of suddenness 
the paper wished to call attention to 
as a sort of a warning to us, a re- 
minder that you or I or anybody, 
either in this city or in Philadelphia, 
or in London, are liable to pass sud- 
denly away if we don't watch out. 

There's only one newspaper I ever 
really enjoyed. It is yellow and old, 
and the news in it has been stale these 
sixty years. 

Always just at the study hour, when 
my brother and I were settling down 
to our books I felt called upon to 
bring forth this paper. I simply 



140 MOSSES FROM 

couldn't endure to see that dear, hu- 
morous, don't give a darn, expression 
on Ted's face give way to one of 
serious contemplation. 

I would read in a solemn voice : 

"iVewj York Evening Post, 

Saturday, Jan. 27, ISJ^Or 

My brother v/ould grin with relief, 
shove his algebra to one side and 
prepare to listen. 

Iread, while Ted interrupted with 
comment and exclamation as follows : 

'•The second course of lectures be- 
fore the Mercantile Society has al- 
ready commenced. Mr. Longfellow, 
the poet, w^ili deliver two lectures on 
the life and writings of Dante; and 
one on the writings of John Paul 
Richter, one of the most remarkable 
and eccentric of the German authors. 

"Professor Torrey, w^hose diligence 
in the pursuit of natural sciences has 
been rewarded with deserved reputa- 
tion, will give a course of ten lectures 
on the chemistry of nature. 

"Two lectures on the battle of Chip- 



A ROLLING STONE 141 

pewa and other engagements on our 
northwestern frontier during the 
late war, will be delivered by Pro- 
fessor Douglass, who was present in 
them. 

• "R. W. Emerson, an impressive 
speaker^ possessing a peculiar style 
and mode of thinking, will lecture on 
the Philosophy of History. 



"Professor Longfellow lectures this 
evening on the life and writings of 
Dante, at Clinton Hall. If his spec- 
ulations on this subject be as inter- 
esting as his Psalm of Life, it will 
be well worth attending." 

"Sis, we must go to that,'' Ted in- 
terrupted. "That Longfellow is a 
pretty smart fellow. It isn't every 
one who could write a Psalm." And 
he repeats w^ith a dreamy look in his 
eye: 

"Tell me not in mournful numbers 
Life was made fer you 'n me ; 
Rudyard Kip has run a corner 
On the things I'd like to be. 



142 MOSSES FROM 

Lives of great Profs, all remind us 
We can make our lives so pat, 

And departing leave behind us 
Fossil prints of where we sat." 

I silence him. "Listen," I say, 
* 'Maggie Beeswax is dead. 

Ted hops from his chair. "No, 
impossible ! What, my little Maggie 
gone } When, oh when did this direful 
thing occur? Last evening! Even while 
I slept. But where, Sis, where?" 

"At her home in Philadelphia," 
I read. This is the climax. As I 
glance at the agonized look on my 
brother's face I am forced to stuff 
my handkerchief down my throat, for 
gravity is essential to the spirit of 
such a play. 

Poor little Maggie Beeswax! If you 
only had had some other name we 
never should have been so irreverent. 

I proceed. "Married. On the 
twenty-first inst. by the Rev. H. 
Chase, Mr. Benj. B. Henrich, to Miss 
Angelina J., daughter of Orick Fisher, 
Esq., of this city." 



A ROLLING STONE 143 

I hear Ted crying out, '^Oh, my little 
Angelina J. how could you be so per- 
^dious ! I thought you were all mine 
-own, but alas, you are hisn ! How am 
I to bear my pain? Sis," he adds, 
^^donH tell me she was married in 
Vhi\2i.— don't do it!" 

Then follows a very sarcastic cut- 
ting paragraph written by a certain 
John Smith who claimed to be related 
to the John Smith who cut off Poca- 
hontas' head — no, she cut off his head 
or else she didn' t cut it off, anyhow 
there was a head mixed up in it 
somewhere. 

This John Smith said a great many 
cutting bitter things about Henry 
Clay's speech that was delivered in 
the Senate day before yesterday, Jan. 
^5, 1840. 

It made Ted horrible mad at Smith 
and he paced the floor in anger. 
*'Do you think I'll have my old chum, 
Henry, abused in that manner? Why, 
Henry and I were schoolmates, and I 



144 MOSSES FROM 

remember well the day he spoke 
'Twinkle, twinkle little star.' " 

"On Friday eve," I proceed, "the 
Rev. and Honorable Henry Clay de- 
livered an oration over the body of 
Judge White. Deacon Daniel Web- 
ster, the great constitutional humbug, 
was not present. It is said that he 
vs^as invited to attend, but that, 
whilst sojourning in England with his 
'dear Duke of Rutland,' he actually 
forgot that such a being as Judge 
White existed. It is also said that he 
has scarcely smj recollection of such 
a man as one Henry Clay. Yours, etc." 

This made w/e mad. The idea of 
calling Webster a "great constitu- 
tional humbug!" 

Ted and I discussed that paragraph 
at length, sandwiching in many little 
anecdotes of these great men who had 
been our schoolmates years before. 

"Nonsense !" you say? Of course ! 
And blessed be nonsense! It kept 
our home in a hubbub of fuu, it kept 



A ROLLING STONE 145 

my mother from "blues" and my 
brother from algebra and me from 
ever going to Vassar and graduating 
with highest honors out of a class of 
one hundred and seventy-five. Blessed 
be Nonsense ! 



THE END. 



